This is going to be a massive post, as I’ve just come back from a full and amazing week at the Illustration Academy, hosted by the Ringling School of Art & Design. Robin and I got to work with an amazing group of students, and had the added help of the one and only Anita Kunz.

Here’s Robin and I at the critique. The Academy is set up so that students receive an assignment on Monday; work like mad throughout a week that is interspersed with instructor demos, slideshow lectures, and figure drawing classes; and then the next week’s instructors critique the final work the following Monday, so that there’s a fresh pair of eyes looking at their finished illustrations. Robin and I critiqued the assignment given to them the previous week by C.F. Payne, which was to depict two people having some kind of a conversation.

Robin and me being introduced to the students at the critique.

Critiquing the work.

L–R: Robin, and full-time Academy instructors John English and Doug Chayka.

Sterling Hundley, also a full-time Academy instructor, observes the crit in progress.

Australian illustrator or Hollywood marquee idol? You make the call.

We ended the crit by debuting a new finished illustration by artist Chris Payne, who had left it with John English before leaving the week prior: a portrait of myself. Chris and I had agreed last fall that we would swap portraits of each other, and John took great delight in showing off the piece.

John English unveiling the portrait of me by C.F. Payne.

Everyone kindly assured me that my ears are not, in fact, that big in real life.

After the crit and a quick lunch, it was time for me to show my slides. Rather than do a “best of” of my portfolio, I decided it would be of more value to use my slideshow to pass along some words of wisdom, along with select samples of my work.

Dispensing some advice from the trenches.

After the slideshow, Robin and I gave the students their assignments. That’s right, assignments as in two separate projects. Given that it was the second-to-last week of the program, we had been urged by Academy founder John English to turn up the heat and give them two assignments, with the caveat that only one had to be brought to a complete finish, but the other one had to be brought to at least a tight sketch if a finish was impossible. The first project given was a conceptual portrait assignment, as if for Rolling Stone, but added in the twist of assigning each student a letter from the alphabet in order to quickly limit their choices as to who they could portray, because we didn’t want them wasting the entire week being overwhelmed by all the possible choices. Giving them one letter to choose from made them focus in quickly on a handful of options, and it also helped to prevent the “superfan” syndrome where someone wants to illustrate a musician of whom they’re such a huge fan, that their familiarity with the minutiae of that celebrity’s life ends up getting in the way of them making an clear, readable concept.

Describing the two assignments to the students.

The other assignment was to do a narrative children’s book illustration from one of three stories: The Tortoise and the Hare, Jack and the Beanstalk, and The Gift of the Magi. This range of stories allowed for the students to pick the overall direction they’d want to pursue for children’s book work: the whimsical, the magical, or the realistic. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of them went with Jack and the Beanstalk, as we had predicted they would.

Turns out that giving a three-hour crit, followed by a slideshow and Q&A session is thirsty work. So it was back to our hotel, the lovely Lido Beach Resort, for daiquiris and quesadillas. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed being regaled by stories by resident Academy comedian Brent Watkinson as we watched the sun set amidst cumulous clouds straight out of an N.C. Wyeth painting.

Refueling after a long day of talking.

L–R: Jodi Watkinson, Brent Watkinson, Doug Chayka.

Talking shop with the Hundleys.

Brent, Doug, Rachel (Robin's lovely and charming fiancee), and Robin.

Brent Watkinson, undoubtedly in the process of telling one of his infamous dirty jokes.

The following days were very full ones. We critiqued the students’ thumbnail sketches the following morning, and the students set to work on gathering photo reference and further refining the designs of their sketches. Figure drawing that night was run by guest instructor Natalie Ascencios, who dropped in for a whirlwind 36 hours.

Natalie Ascensios working with the students.

On Wednesday, it was Robin’s turn to take the slideshow spotlight. Robin wowed the students with an incredibly well-thought thought-out slideshow that managed to weave together great words of advice, samples of his amazing illustrations, and some truly hilarious potshots at the full-time instructors.

Robin pacing nervously before his talk. Robin takes his lectures very seriously and delivered a homerun.

The full-timers had a dinner obligation that night, so Robin, Rachel, Anita and myself went out to The Old Salty Dog that night for dinner. The conversation was lively and the food was mostly deep-fried.

Dinner with the crew.

On Thursday, it was time for me to do my painting demo for the students. Demos are nerve-wracking, because you don’t want to tank in front of a group of talented students. Thankfully, it seemed to go over well. One of the highlights was having all of my co-instructors present while I worked, and we ended up having a spontaneous roundtable discussion on our individual hopes and dreams as illustrators. Having a good discussion going like that during a painting demo makes the time fly by much more quickly for all involved.

My demo piece before I began painting, a portrait of Henri Matisse. I transferred the drawing and toned the panel with acrylic before arriving at the Academy.

The tiered seating setup for students to view demos.

I start by painting the shadow areas thinly.

Blocking in simple shapes and keeping it nice and graphic before doing any rendering. As I told the students, I'm just a dumb guy trying to paint smart.

Once the block-in is complete, that's when the fun of building up the lighter values begins. The bright red background was placed with the intention of covering it up with a complementary color at the very end.

Having your demo observed by pros like Anita Kunz and Doug Chayka will help keep you on your A-game.

George Pratt. George is the unofficial photographer for the Academy, and most of the photos in this post were taken by him.

Starting to render details at this stage. A demo never has the finish that one would achieve in the studio working without 50 people watching you, but hopefully captures a sense of vitality due to the speed at which you have to work.

You can see my photo reference here—one that is printed light so I can see details in shadows when needed, and one that is printed darker, so that I keep my eye on the overall light/dark pattern.

Very close to being done at this point. I picked at it for a while longer that night while the students were figure drawing.

The next day, Robin did his demo, a portrait of Sean Penn. He nailed it. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

Showing the underpainting and dark values washed in.

Robin uses a very limited palette, to ensure color continuity in his pieces.

Anita conferring with Robin.

Putting on the finishing touches.

Robin amazed all of the oil painters in the group (myself included) with his incredible facility for blending acrylics as if they were oils.

The last night of the Academy was capped off with a group dinner and followed by a few rounds of pool at a Sarasota nightclub, where we were joined by many of the students.

The Academy crew, outside Marina Jack's.

Robin and me at the end of a great week.

All in all, it was an incredible week. Thanks to John, Brent, George, Sterling, and Doug for treating us like kings while we were there, and thanks to the students for pushing themselves and for having such good attitudes. You guys were a joy to work with, and if any of you happen to read this post, please send me jpegs of your finished pieces!