Reverie Days 3 and 4

Day 3 photos and Day 4 photos.

By day three, everyone had settled in to their painting and drawing lessons. Lots of demos, as always, even when a guest is presenting, there is always someone painting next to them.

Sadly, I didn't get to hear much of the lectures as I was looking through portfolios and watching everyone work, but what I did catch of them was great. Notably, Marko Djurdjevic's in depth presentation of his Marvel covers and Marshal Vandruff's sequential story telling via Windsor McCay seemed worth the effort of getting to Dallas all on it's own.

Greg painted a follow-up to his "Above the Timberline" video demo painting. He stood for seven hours without a break. He held a good crowd the entire time, even when there was a red tail hawk modeling around the corner.

Day 4 was all business and goodbyes.

Jason Manley and Sherry McKenna gave an in depth talk about contracts and rights. Shawn Barber, Bobby Chiu, Greg Manchess, and I gave a talk on the business side of illustration. This was followed by a few hours of portfolio reviews with various game and movie proefsionals, artists, a toy manufacturer, and myself. Lots of promise out there. I believe I stunned a few by speaking at 30 miles a minute. Must learn to slooow down.

The hole thing wound down with a thunderdome contest. This year the topic was to follow-up a presentation by HOPE (Helping Other People Everywhere). The assignment was to create an im age that brought awareness of illegally and often deadly mining of materials used in laptops and cell phones in the Congo. Andrew Jones won the instructor contest, I didn't catch the name of the attendee winner but he made a great image.

After clean up and a quick round of "polish the turd" (where I got to make various scribbles an dteh artists turned them into drawings) at the bar, we headed up for the instructor's after party. Stephan Martinere made an appearance, it was great to catch up with him a bit. He seems very happy as a Texan. I spent a lot of time talking to Aleksi Briclot, who some day I'll get to work for us! Given his schedule it wont be any time soon.

Sad and heartfelt good-byes. A big thank you to Jason Manley for inviting us. I always feel guilty at these things, it seems like too much fun to be considered working. And thanks to Melissa Lee for getting us there. Most of all, thanks to all the attendees. Art is a solitary thing and tends to attract people that like it that way, it's a brave thing to throw yourself out in public and try to create something.

And now I'm home and tired, looking at a stack of notes and business cards that I'm looking forward to going through....after I get some rest.

Reverie Day 2

Day 2 pictures here.

Somehow the day ended with hanging out in a hotel room with four artists and a red tail hawk named Dakota. Everything else is an art infused blur.

Start time was mercifully late, given the party the night before. Intros and keynote were at 1:00. It took a while to get through the introductions since there are With 60 instructors here it took a while to get thrpugh introductions. I was happy for it, though -- it's amazing what kind of talent we were standing next to witout realizing it, not knowing what everyon elooks like.

The keynote was given by Lorne Lanning who talked about many cool things but stressed the idea of world building and ownership -- creating your own worlds that can be explore across many platforms: paintings to books to comics to toys to movies...Lorne was followed by Frank Beddor, whose Looking Glass Wars has been doing just that.

However, whatever is happening on the main stage is only part of the action at these things. At any one time there two dozen demos going on. If you are an artist, the thing to do is just sit yourself down next to these guys and start drawing and painting and bombarding them with as many questions as possible. Me, I walk around peering over shoulders a lot, taking to students and instructors and trying to catalog every promising lead I can. I saw lots of great portfolios and work doing done on the. (Any workshopers out there: I know we have the business day on Tuesday but feel free to grab me whenever you see me.)

I got to meet two artists I just hired before coming down here: Vance Kovacs, who will be painting covers and interiors for Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon series for Tor. In fact, I was able to hand deliver the manuscript on Saturday night. After watching him paint for a few hours, I got even more excited about the project. And I met recent Spectrum award winner Kekai Kotaki who had emailed me some kick-ass sketches late last week.

I met a Marvel talent scout, C.B. Cebulski. Talk about an awesome job, he travels the world looking at artists and bringing them to Marvel. We'll have to compare notes back in NY. I only just got a moment to check out his blog, but it seems very envy inducing.

We had to have lunch with a couple of great animation artists, Dustin d'Arault and Yashar Kassi.

Scott Brundage has been our meal buddy most of the days. He's a great watercolorist whose trying out digital for the first time here.

Ringling alumni are all over the place and looking good. Ringling will take over the art world.

A few Master Class alumni are here...making me both nostalgic for last year and excited about the upcoming summer.

And....somehow by the end of the night I was in a hotel room with Greg, David Levy, and Dakota, Manny Carrosco's beautiful red tail hawk.

Reverie: Kick-off Party

Reverie officially started late last night with two kick-off parties. The first hosted by ReelFX animation studio. The second being the Massive Black/ConceprtArt.org party, in conjunction with the American Film Institute. It was easy to spot the AFI people -- they were the ones in ties.

It's Jason Manely's intent to have this party "hit hard with the inspiration" and it works. Three DJs, Andrew Jones performance painting, 20+ digital and traditional demos, models to draw from...attendees drawing, watching the demos, dancing, and talking. Everyone seems super psyched to get to work for the next bunch of days.

Flickr set: Reverie Day 1

Twitter tag: #rev09

Reverie: first impressions

The ConceptArt.org workshop, Reverie, is gearing up. I got in to Dallas late last night, after a slightly harrowing flight. Dallas is having "weather."

I'm just back from a quick instructor meet-and-greet to get a look around our new home for the next three days. It'll be a great venue, much more intimate than Seattle was. The traditional and digital sections now share the floor, which will make it a lot easier to soak in both and listen to all the lectures. It's official: I am very excited about the upcoming days.

We are sharing Dallas with a photographic educators conference and the American Film Institute Festival. Fun neighbors. The photo conference has students running all over the hotel and the AFI festival will be sponsoring one of two kick off parties tonight. It's going to be a very long and fun night. Luckily, I slept until noon today.

I'll be Twittering the weekend away. I've never used hash tags before but for those that know what to do with them, I was told to use: #rev09