ILLUS-3036 

WHAT'S YOUR STORY?

Faculty: Catherine Huang

Course Level: Junior, Senior, 5th Year

3 Credits

CONCEPTS ELECTIVE REQUIREMENT: This course fulfills the additional concepts elective requirement for Illustration majors.

When we choose a story to read, retell, or illustrate, that choice reveals something about ourselves. What motivates an artist to explore one particular theme over another, whether it is a political issue, personal obsession, or a “purely aesthetic” interest? This course will require students to mine personal meaning in the narrative sources they choose for class projects, ultimately using these analytical conclusions to shape each project’s character. Assignments will include the creation of the following: a storyboard; an historical narrative image, a series for a book, a comic and a game or toy. Discussions will include: formatting a single narrative image or a series of images; telling stories without text; illustrating stories for adults and for children, analyzing plot, character, pacing, and style and communicating the essential meaning of a story to an audience.

This course will involve in-class critique, a character workshop, a visit to Special Collections, a visit to the RISD Museum, a field trip, slide/Powerpoint lectures, and a weekly review of books, picture books, graphic novels, comics, games and toys.

Capacity: 15

Registration Restriction: Major elective; restricted to Illustration juniors and seniors; open to non-majors pending seat availability and permission of instructor. 

Semester Offered: Fall