Hartford | Day 6

Friday finally rolled around. We had two demonstrations today. A watercolor demo by children's book illustrator Dennis Nolan was a lesson in detail and control of a very tough medium. He works in a limited pallet, with no more than 6 prismatic colors and another 6 earthtones. He showed his modeling technique as well as fades, fills and color progressions. I learn a few tips I can translate into hours of frustration saved. The other demo was by Ron Mazellan, Marion, IN did a demo with one of his Indianapolis Colts images. He works very similar to my oil style, but his projects are much more realistic. I picked up a couple of nice tips, such as wearing an odd sock on your left hand and using that to wipe or brush cleaning, even lifting pigment with the sock as a built-in tool. Quite a big crowd surrounded him as the area went from a small demo for three friends to a crowd of 20, plus 4 faculty members and a couple of visiting colleagues. I'd like to see more of these demos in the future, but i don't see how they can cram it in with the number of class hours we have to devote to REAL school work, like the Business of Illustration... etc...
Museum tomorrow... Not sure what we're seeing, but I hear it's a pile of original classic American Illustrations. Word is that it's a trip to the museum basement and their secret stash of hidden treasures... Indiana Jones-style