6 Assignment: The Illustrated Poster

Donivan imagined what it would look like to have the posters used in-situ, a good test of the effectiveness of the illustration.

(JMB= Dr. Boehman, BATG=Benjamin Alexander Taveras Gonzalez)

JMB: Did you find this project useful?

BATG: Yes. At the beginning, with a lot of major assignments, I felt like I was stuck. I had a lot of ideas I wanted to do for this project, and I knew time was against me, so I was able to be quick and find the concept and just decide. If I stayed and just thought about it–like I do with a lot of personal projects–it is hard to know where to start, and I get stuck. So it was good to just get started. Also, I want to submit this to the MTA one day–it would be so fun. I didn’t know they accepted submissions until we talked about it in class. That’s so fun! I think that is one of the things I have as a goal on my artist’s checklist.

JMB: Me, too! Do you think having the perimeters of “this must be related to the MTA in some way” help to give you a boundary to work within, so it was easier for your imagination?

BATG: Yes, if we didn’t have that perimeter, I think I would have been lost. Those perimeters or rules made it so much better for me as a starting point. It has to be transportation related, though I made it fantasy-like, more expressive, but it still has a train. It made it easier to enjoy the process by having a base within I could explore my creativity. With illustration, those perimeters and limitations really help to navigate within a bubble of things you can do.

JMB: I agree. It just gives your brain something to focus on, and you still have free rein within that. If you look at all of the works by all of the students, they are completely different. One wouldn’t think that fantasy and the MTA would go together, but in your mind, it did. So I think that’s one of the nice things about illustration in general, is that you have some sort of limitation, but the challenge is to make your imagination shoot upwards within that smaller space. How did you approach the process of making this?

BATG: I did a lot of research about the trains, and spent a lot of time observing the way the lights reflected off the 7 train when I would be headed home at golden hour or nighttime, so I could have a starting point. I would stare at it and see how the lights played on the surface. I had a lot of pictures of the trains coming in.

JMB: That’s interesting, because your picture has the trains running overhead through the night sky, and the 7 Train (Queens to Manhattan) is one of the few elevated lines we have, so that makes sense.

BATG: Yes, that was a perfect reference since I knew I wanted it to be up above. In the beginning, I wanted clouds as tracks, but to make it more mystical, I thought of having the fairies lift the train and have their dust be the thing that lifts the trains from the city to the clouds. I had idea after idea and sketched it out. I grabbed a pencil and started scribbling in yellow to see the tracks of the dust. I had fun making the lines and arranging the composition. It was a lot of fun once I came up with my concept because of the freedom I had with the subject.

JMB: This has a good painted texture for a digital work. What program were you using?

BATG: Procreate.

JMB: So one of the things I wrote about in this assignment is that you might be limited in the number of layers you can have because of the size and resolution requirements of this image. Do you remember if you were very limited?

BATG: Yes, I think I only had three or four, so I had to keep merging. Sketching on one layer and then merging it, or working in a different file and import it and merge it so I could have more layers to play around with.

JMB: So that made you approach it more like a traditional work of art because you didn’t have 200 layers to play around with. Did you have any artistic or cultural references when you approached this work?

BATG: Not really. I think I wanted to make it fantasy and mostly for kids to wonder and look at it while they’re in the train. If I was a kid, I would love it. I wanted to have something to capture children’s attention. Not cultural, but something universal. As for artistic inspiration: I looked at the sun, the nighttime–natural inspirations–merged with the mechanic, modern element of civic life we have now, combined with something carefree.

JMB: It kind of reminds me of Art Deco decor we have in the city with the luscious gold. It gives a shining city sort of feeling, like Rockefeller Center. Because this was the final assignment and late in the semester, it may have been different in the way that you got feedback. Do you remember the feedback you got?

BATG: I remember you told me to change the figures in the windows–define or show the people in the windows. But I think this feedback, if I recall, was after I submitted the work at the final exam. You told me to keep in mind that it would be seen large, and not tiny, in real life. It will be expanded, people will see the details. So that made sense.

JMB: If you were to do this again today, what would you change, and why?

BATG: The same work?

JMB: Sure, you can answer the question as you like.

BATG: I would want to make the fairies have more drama, more variety, more diversity. I wish I had made the tracks out of fairy dust in the same gold color as if they were forming it with the dust.

JMB: That would have been difficult. I like the magical quality you got, and I really like how the gold looks gold and yellow.

BATG: It took a long time!

JMB: Because gold is different than you would think. You got those deep brownish tones in there. It works nicely. So what advice would you give to another student approaching this same assignment?

BATG: Would it be too hippyish of me to tell them to have fun and at the same time, to listen to the feedback you get? Find that balance. That comes easier with building a relationship with your professor. Because if I build that, I can have the confidence to tell the professor how I feel about the work that I am making. Because you have more experience, you will tell us what you see. But if we have trust, we can be more open to receive that feedback. The relationship I had with the professor made it a much better experience. I feel like if I was very shy, I think I would have felt more stuck, as I have in other classes. But because I was able to have a conversation, and have feedback and engage with you…I would tell the students to be open, to have a relationship with the professor, because she wants to see you succeed. Be open to hearing a different perspective, and have fun.

JMB: That’s funny, because the challenge of that class for me is getting people to open their walls enough that I can come in and talk to them in a way that they don’t feel defensive. Because it’s hard to take feedback, right? You come in with your ideas and sketches, and you think they’re the best thing ever, and someone tells you what you need to work on, your first reaction might be to put up a defense. But I think knowing that that person has your back and is not being critical and is trying to help you to do better–that’s what I try to do.  So each semester, it’s like 20 different students that I have to figure out the right way to talk to them, and it takes me a while. Some people are naturally easier because they really want to be pushed.

BATG: You have to be able to realize that the things you do and think are being perceived outside of yourself. The metacognition. Having someone else tell you–this work needs a bit of this or that–if you can’t step away and reflect on your work and have a different view of it, from a different angle–this is how others see it–this is something I struggle with a lot, to take my ideas outside of myself. But I need to trust: if someone tells me to jump, it’s ok, you’re not going to die–I would jump! I would jump and see how it is, rather than not changing–I can at least try. I can always go back, but seeing how something different would look can be therapeutic, too.

JMB: I remember this. It still can be difficult if people are critical. The way I see it: I’m not trying to change the way you make art, but maybe I’ll try to get you to look at a work conceptually in a different way, and perhaps push you to see if you can do what you naturally do better. But I do push because I know you have the capacity and the ability and I want you to leave my class feeling like you’ve gotten better. But it’s a lot of emotional labor! I am exhausted at the end of class, haha. I’m introverted, so it’s tiring. But it’s a great feeling (and then I get a good sleep).