By Isa Cunanan
At one in the morning, Ryan Van Eyk pauses
from his digital painting and asks out loud: “Can I get an opinion from
someone?” A moment later three other artists crowd around Van Eyk's Wacom
Cintiq and squint at the character on his screen. Adriana Nieto from Mexico
City, Mexico; June Shieh from Los Angeles, USA; Sergio Tomo from Sao Paulo,
Brazil; and Van Eyk from Johannesburg, South Africa are training in Toronto for
30 days at Imaginism Studios' in-house workshop, and they've been drawing
together since Thierry Lafontaine taught yesterday’s morning
lesson 14 hours ago.
The in-house workshop, from top, left to right: Adriana Nieto, Ryan Van Eyk, Sergio Tomo, and June Shieh.
When Imaginism Studios founder Bobby Chiu
asked Van Eyk how his training was going over dinner, Van Eyk joked that it was
like “life before this was a lie.” Shieh pointed out that the workshop was “a
place where people stop being polite" — the artists live, eat, and draw
together for 30 days straight — “and start getting really good at drawing.” Nieto admitted that she went to bed at 8:30 a.m. the day before while
working on a workshop assignment that she "enjoyed a little too
much," and Tomo plans to extend his final day in Toronto
by an extra 24 hours — he returns to work the same afternoon his 12-hour
flight from Toronto lands in Sao Paulo.
Coming Home
Workshop alumni return home recharged and
“full of new arsenal,” previous workshop artist Jodie Taylah describes from her place in Melbourne, Australia. The artists who have
lived and studied in the Imaginism house are also connecting with one another
online, where they trade specialized critiques, get to know workshop artists
from different groups, and collaborate on new projects. The artwork shared
within the growing community astonishes even the Imaginism instructors, with
Chiu posting feedback to their daily art posts like “Just gorgeous!”
“Siiiiick!” and “Whoa!!” and Lafontaine pointing to new pieces from his past
students and saying: “Looks amazing, doesn't it?” and “they learned a lot.”
A lifetime of feedback
During the workshop Lafontaine fosters a
healthy feedback system, where he projects evolving artwork by the artists on
a large studio TV and paints fine-tuned critiques directly on each piece.
Instructor Thierry Lafontaine reviews Danilo Fiocco's artwork while the artist (below) takes notes.
Lafontaine’s critiques are specific and
methodical. During his feedback session, recent workshop artist Danilo Fiocco
noted that “I need to make a checklist.”
One of the sessions included checking out
the first-ever digital painting by comic book artist Alvin Lee, who took
the workshop to “grow his hands” and add to the bag of tricks he shares while
teaching Schoolism’s comic book course.
“I'm gonna be a man with many hats when I'm
done,” the Toronto
native tweeted during the workshop. “Both literally and
figuratively.”
The Schoolism live workshop series
The recently graduated workshop artists —
which included Alvin Lee, Danilo Fiocco, Yngve Martinussen, and Sarah Sullivan — recently
attended the Schoolism workshop event this past June in downtown Toronto, in what Lee
called “a perfect ending to an awesome month of learning.” Hosted by Autodesk and sponsored by Seneca College, the event brought
together caricature artist Jason Seiler, videogame concept artist Anthony Jones, and Pixar story artists Louis Gonzales and Alex Woo for a weekend of
lectures that added a live element to Schoolism’s online learning methods, which
share lessons and personal critiques with students who take courses from
around the world.
The Schoolism instructors shared their
stories and techniques with a full house at the sold-out event.
Jason Seiler: ‘But that’s how they look!’
“It’s like taking a rattlesnake, putting it
in a box, and shaking it,” renowned caricaturist Jason Seiler says about the
live portraits he’s done in the early stages of his loaded art career. “Don’t
draw my big nose,” he mimics. “Rrrrrerrr!”
The Chicago resident took a
weekend off from illustrating for
publications like Time, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, and the New York
Times so that he could let loose in Toronto for the Schoolism live workshop
series — also featuring concept artist Anthony Jones and Pixar story artists
Louis Gonzales and Alex Woo — which has made its rounds in a couple different
continents over the past few months.
“He’s got a big nose––” Seiler continues
about noses, “to me that’s amateur.” The artist’s Wacom Cintiq screen transmits
through four large-screen TVs arranged around the audience, and he zooms in on
the portrait and points out: “Look at his head. You could land helicopters on
that thing.” He adds: “It’s almost like he’s wearing a helmet. He’s very
ape-like, too,” and finally: “He just looks like a big baby to me. Everything about his face is like a two-year-old.” Seiler emerges from his thoughts and
explains that his criticisms –– which distract him from enjoying movies –– are
more honest than they are cruel.
“People get offended when you draw Obama’s
mole — why?” he challenges. “It’s on his friggin’ face. Forever.” Seiler
launches into the moral difference between drawing someone's mole and drawing
someone's zit, and Imaginism workshop artists Danilo Fiocco, Yngve Martinussen,
Sarah Sullivan, and Alvin Lee –– who teaches the “Powerful Comic Book
Portfolio” course at Schoolism –– jot down notes along with the rest of the
audience.
 |
| The workshop artists with Jason Seiler. |
The audience fits a few personal questions
into the presentation, which reveals that the celebrity artist who paints
celebrity portraits loves drawing regular people, especially street people, and
finds himself drawing fish, "scales," and all sorts of other animals
in his spare time. The artist also shares that he's thought about making a
realistic piece before but doesn't see the "point," talks and acts
like his characters while he draws them, and enjoys everything about
traditional painting. He’s mastered Photoshop and creates most commissions
digitally, but Seiler's roots are traditional, and they show in his philosophy
about art. “It’s a painting, not a computer trick,” Seiler says about his digital pieces. “That’s the way I feel."
As Seiler’s afternoon of digital advice and
insight carries on, the workshop group somehow dodges participating in an
impromptu closing demonstration, during which the artist scans the faces in the room,
picks out several, slightly nervous volunteers, and asks that everyone stand side
by side.
Seiler gives the signal and the line-up
smiles — and we all get a hint of how a caricaturist sees the world.
“See what happens?” he laughs. “Lots of
great things happen.”
Anthony Jones and his ‘robot pencil’
Anthony Jones says “shing” when he paints
metal. He also flips his characters from side to side on his screen so that
they dance, cracks jokes that you'd swear have a double meaning, and does it
all while he’s giving a formal lecture to people who are hanging onto every
word –– because Jones works so quickly that full designs pop out somewhere
between his step one and his step two, and everybody in the room wants to know
how he gets metal to look so much like metal.
A concept artist with clients that
include Sony, Hasbro, and Fire Forge Games, Jones has created,
revised, and created again to produce professional, mind-blowing work, and
along the way he’s developed the opinion that “Once someone’s paying you,
you’ve got to stop being so anal about it. Just say ‘OK.’”
He’s talking about when you’re in a bad
relationship and your friends are telling you to get out, but you’re saying
back: “You don’t know me!” And: “Get away from my monitor!”
Jones drives home that you should “let
people critique you” because “it makes you better." Jones crafts character
after character on his Wacom Cintiq for the audience to observe, noting that
the “personal epiphanies” that make you vulnerable to criticism when you draw
don’t matter as much when you work fast. And then he stops and laughs at
himself, because the shape of the robot he’s drawing while he talks looks, more
than anything, like a chicken. “I need to update my visual library,” he jokes.
The artist picks through his personal desktop
during the lecture so that he can delve deeper into his techniques with examples, and he’s so candid that you half expect he’ll open a folder
that pops up along the way named “secrets.”
Jones laughs and wonders if he should call
the folder something else.
But “I’m trying to give you all my
secrets,” he says. “You guys deserve it.”
 |
| The workshop artists with Anthony Jones. |
|
|
Louis Gonzales and Alex Woo bring Pixar to Toronto
Everyone says they felt like they were hanging out in a Pixar studio when story artists Alex Woo and Louis Gonzales talked
about life drawing for animation. The duo had the audience sketch live
poses and translate the poses into a chosen animal. During the lecture one artist sketched examples on a Cintiq, while the other wove through the
audience and offered comments and tips.
 |
| Alex Woo takes the mic (right) while Louis Gonzales sketches. |
"It was totally interactive," Alvin Lee
commented when the gesture workshop wrapped up. True to its praise, the
presentation kept everyone in attendance buzzing throughout the weekend.
Gonzales is a mentor for Pixar’s story
intern program and teaches a story class at the Animation Collaborative. He got
his “first big break” when a chance meeting at a comic
book store led to an internship. Gonzales entered the art scene with no related schooling, but says that his skills grew
with experience.
“Everyone has to struggle through their
experiences. It’s those experiences that make you a better artist,” Gonzales
says in a Schoolism interview, where he teaches a gesture-drawing
class jointly with Woo. “Those experiences form everything you
do,” he continues. “It’s not the pencil line necessarily, or the brush stroke,
it’s the decision behind it. It’s the thought, the care, and the intent of the
line that makes you [a better artist]. And that comes with experience.”
Gonzales broke into the industry after
finding a foothold with the internship, and since then he’s
storyboarded and animated in films such as Brave, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo.
Woo’s career kick-started with a student
Academy Award, and since then his credits have included storyboarding for Cars
2 and Ratatouille, and developing art for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In his
Schoolism interview Woo recalls advice his dad gave him that helped shape
the work ethic that drives his career: “Only people who are the best make good
money in this industry,” he quotes. “So do you think you’re one of the best?”
"Do your best with it, and that's where opportunities come," Gonzales adds. "With hard work and a good attitude you get rewards. I'm not saying you have to be 'Mr. happy face' all the time, cause I'm certainly not ... but [art is] the kind of thing where if you work well with people and work hard at your craft, opportunities come to you."
The next reunion
Imaginism Studios, Schoolism teachers, and
a few workshop artists — such as Jimena Sanchez and June Shieh — reunited this weekend at the San Diego Comicon, which ran until
July 15. Imaginism had instructor presentations at their table everyday, and Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera debuted Pieces of Wonderland, their new book.
A few workshop alumni have been asking, with an undercurrent of seriousness: “Is it too early for a
reunion?” The only problem to solve is deciding where the get-together will
occur, with workshop artists residing in North and South
America, and abroad.
The artists take 30 days off to learn with one another in Toronto — which for some is on a different continent — but they return recharged.
“I had the best month of my life there,
guys,” Fiocco wrote to his old housemates after his plane landed back in Brazil. “Hands
down.”
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| Fiocco, Martinussen, Sullivan, and Lee take a final photo at Toronto Pearson airport. |
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| Shieh, Nieto, Tomo, and Eyk close in for a group shot at Niagra Falls. |
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