Brooke was contacted by Full Sail University and is going up to Orlando for a tour and to talk to faculty on July 15th! Great news!
She is interested in taking a tour at Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, and I asked her to talk to her parents and arrange an appointment with them too.

For our lesson, Brooke brought in her character sketches and we discussed them in relationship to her final characters created online. She was asked to clean up her sketches by going over them with Micron Pens to create a clean and professional look to her works. Then put her sketches (and printed out final characters online) into sheet protectors and into a binder. The final result is for Brooke to have an organized hard copy of her artworks to present to potential faculty at colleges.
We also discussed artists such as Roy Lichenstein, Cao-Fei, Amanda Conner, Cliff Chiang, J.C. Leyendecker and Crooked Trees.

Meeting with Brooke was a pleasure and she is a very talented digital artist.
After talking with her, and seeing her work and writings, we were able to narrow down what she would like to do. Brooke is interested in going to art school for graphic arts and illustration.
As a result, we requested information from three colleges (The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Rollins College and Full Sail) through email.
The goal is to help Brooke develop a portfolio that she can submit to these schools to better her education, talents and future opportunities.
Brooke's homework was to buy a sketchbook and sketch two graphic art characters and then provide a summary of the physical traits, personality and actions of each character.

Brooke called in sick today.

During this session Brooke worked on the 2nd drawing for the self portrait. This drawing is precisely what lends itself to the diptych that Brooke began several months ago. Once the drawing is complete it will be transferred to an 8 x 10" canvas that Brooke will paint.

It has been several sessions since Brooke and I have worked together. This new drawing is one that is based on an assignment I gave her months ago, "The Self Portrait". I believe that Brooke is now better able to artistically capture her image as a portrait as she begins to transform herself in to one of her animated characters. She brought in the book "The Art of Amanda Conner", which was a really good way for us to begin laying the foundation for her self-portrait series.

It has been several sessions since Brooke and I have worked together. This new drawing is one that is based on an assignment I gave her months ago, "The Self Portrait". I believe that Brooke is now better able to artistically capture her image as a portrait as she begins to transform herself in to one of her animated characters. She brought in the book "The Art of Amanda Conner", which was a really good way for us to begin laying the foundation for her self-portrait series.

Brooke's 2nd still life is emerging beautifully. The reflections, along side the highlights & shadows make the painting visually stand-out. Since Brooke was doing so well today, I requested that her mother be contacted in order to extend the session. She agreed so Brooke and I worked up until the very last moment to finally complete the painting of the metal spiral vase. The only thing left to do is to develop the flowers, and that can be done next week after we place the self portrait on the 3rd canvas for the triptych we began during our 1st art session. I feel now that Brooke feels more comfortable in approaching how to apply paint to the surface of the canvas. Interestingly, she ask fewer & fewer questions about how to achieve a particular color(which is a very good thing) and is bolder in her approach to painting. There is still room for growth, but she is steadily progressing.

Things progressed nicely today. In today's painting lesson I offered some, but not as much, input that I usually do during each session. The idea behind this recent teaching strategy is to gauge just how much information Brooke has learned over the past several months with regards to painting. This less hands on approach will provide Brooke with more confidence as she continues to learn to make painting decisions on her own. These decisions (concerning color, proportion and scale) are necessary ones, especially since she has decided that her next educational step is college. In these next few sessions I plan to respond to Brooke's questions, such as "What do you think I should place or do here?" or “Do you think that this is the best color choice for the painting?” with confidence building guidance, such as "Brooke, in viewing the objects before you, what is it that you observe about the still life set up that will help you to make your selection more meaningful to you?" This shift in our meetings I think will be very helpful to her as she begins to create her portfolio. Note: Similar questions were asked during our session today. At first Brooke was a bit hesitant, but with encouragement she appeared to be more confident in the choices she made concerning her painting.

Began the class with an earnest discussion concerning developing Brooke's portfolio for applying to Ringling College for art. Discussed the items that will be needed for Brooke to apply, and how many images as well as potential artworks the school will be looking for when she submits her portfolio. We split time between working on the still life painting and the drawing for her next illustration using the dream catcher. The ideas behind the drawing are good and once she finishes the initial illustration it will be scanned in to the computer and worked on as a design.

Brooke was absent for today.