Sunday, July 11, 2010

GOING TO THE ART DEPARTMENT

I'm going to The Art Department!! I'm so excited!! Classes start tomorrow!


But I have much more to say, I've been doing so much within the past 6 weeks.


First, I went to The Illustration Academy for 4 weeks, and I must say, it completely changed my life and career. I am excited and a little upset that I learned more in 4 weeks than in 3 years of university. I was surrounded by so many great teachers and students, made some great new friends, networked, and learned sooooo much. The teachers that were there were Sterling Hundley, Josh George, Doug Chakya, Anita Kunz, Jon Foster, Jason Manley, and CF Payne!!


Then, the day after the academy, Colin Boyer, Charles Valsechi (two good friends I made at the academy), and I drove out to Kansas City, MO to catch the last week of a three week workshop of TAD. That was also amazing. I made my friendships stronger, met even more teachers and students, and got to see a beautiful city. Kansas City is so vibrant and very similar to Richmond...but better! We got to see Mark English's studio too and see some paintings he's working on, it was so inspiring! We got to meet both John and Mark English, George Pratt, Marshall Vandruff, and Andrew Jones.


Then, we made our way to Philadelphia to meet with our academy friend Sarah Alfarhan, and we celebrated the 4th. The next day we went to Chads Ford and saw all the amazing works at The Brandywine Museum. All the greats are there, I saw all three Wyeths, Charles Dana Gibson, Rockwell, Parrish, so many great illustrators and painters works! I had to cut the Brandywine short, I had to make it down to South Carolina for a family emergency, so I took an Amtrak down and I'm still here.


The great thing about TAD though, is that the classes are online, and I'm so lucky to live near a POD. The first class is actually in a few hours!! I'll post some images soon, got to get some sleep! I'll also write more in depth about the adventure I just had, there are so many details. TAD is the most exciting thing to happen to the art world, I'm so excited to be a part of it!