The AIGA Link Program workshop to start the program year was Dynamic Life Drawing with Jeff Hanada. A late model caused some to panic, while volunteers led the students in warm up exercises in their sketchbooks. Then, while we waited for the back up model to arrive, Joe Peha showed off his posing abilities for some quick gesture drawings. When the model arrived nearly at the same time as the back up model the students were given the opportunity to draw both male and female forms in poses of 3, 5 and 10 minutes long. By the end the students had progressed from small, cramped line drawings to full figure and full paper sized drawings that showed both volume, movement and often detailed aspects of the model. The final half hour of the workshop was spent in a volunteer led critique which drew attention to the progress the students made and affirmed what they had learned. As the students waited for their rides to arrive when asked about how they thought the workshop went many students said it was hard, but that they really liked the difference between their first and last drawings.
The AIGA Link Program's October workshop was Poster Design with world-renowned designer Robynne Raye from Modern Dog Design Co. She asked the students to create a poster about a cause they are passionate about using found magazine collage, cut paper and sumi ink. Some popular causes chosen by the students were environmental disasters, self image, animal rights and pollution. After creating their posters students talked about their posters in a half hour critique. Finally, students participated in a raffle where one lucky student received a copy of Robynne's book, Modern Dog: 20 Years of Poster Art. Students were then sent home with other various Modern Dog paraphernalia including the bumper sticker: "I'm not gay, I just like rainbows" and the ever popular Modern Dog deck of cards.
November's workshop featured artist Romson Bustillo. He encouraged students to represent themselves and their emotions somewhat abstractly in an anthropomorphic wire sculpture. They each began similarly with five circles of wire and built their sculptures into either stand alone figures or mobiles using pliers and a range of wire gauges. Students then helped themselves to different embellishments such as feathers, handmade japanese papers, painted on beeswax or oil sticks. The results were fabulous of course and Romson closed the workshop with a discussion about the challenges and rewards of making artwork and an encouragement to share their artwork in the end of year gallery show.
December's Typography Workshop was lead by Graphic Designer and current Seattle chapter AIGA President Jeff Barlow who presented to the students a new means of looking at and recognizing letterforms. Beyond computer generated fonts, Barlow displayed a series of alphabets commonly found in everyday objects. From stand pipes that created the letter R to the negative shapes in between city buildings that can create an entire alphabet if viewed with a creative eye. Barlow underscored that not only is Design ubiquitous, but so too Typography-one of the major elements of graphic design. The challenge for students was to pour through a collection of random found objects and as a group develop a unique alphabet. Letters of the alphabet were then photographed by volunteers and printed so that students could further develop their letters into works of art. The workshop culminated in a group critique.
January's artist, Don Moore, taught students the basics of linoleum block carving and printing. He presented a short survey of the history of printmaking and then demonstrated techniques in carving and printing a linoleum block. Students were then supplied with drawing tools to create a design and carving tools with which to cut their blocks. Volunteers then individually helped each student ink and print multiple colors and stages of carving. A short discussion and critique followed the working session.
