rlnelson

Travels

I spent the early summer working on some watercolors in preparation for a faculty exhibition this fall at Truman. Mostly subject matter of locations I have visited recently. Now back to working on digital skills.

There seems to be a reoccurring cycle

Towards the end of the fall semester (while I was teaching for the first time a course in 3D Modeling, Motion and Animation), I dove back into 3D modeling myself. It has been 15 years since I have done anything significant in the virtual 3D realm, so this wasn’t totally starting from scratch, but almost.Continue reading “There seems to be a reoccurring cycle”

Scenes from abroad

The spring semester is about to begin at Truman Sate and I’m posting a few more of my watercolors from last semester that I neglected to post to my blog. Two are scenes from a trip to Scotland I took a couple of years ago and one from Tokyo, Japan where my oldest daughter lives.

Architecture/buildings

I keep bouncing my students around/between nature/natural subjects and man-made/mechanical subjects just to push their technique – and for them to figure out what they can do innately and what comes harder for them. Each student is different in their likes and dislikes. So, this week is buildings and architecture. My choice for my demoContinue reading “Architecture/buildings”

Landscapes

We have moved on to watercolor landscapes in illustration class this week. Landscapes are a bit more challenging than birds and it takes practice to pull them off. Actually, I just tell the students that landscapes are a bitch and they take a lot of practice. They believe me. Here is today’s demo, a littleContinue reading “Landscapes”

Demo Bird 2016

Here is this year’s illustration class, watercolor demo bird. Fresh off the press this morning. This is an Eastern Bluebird – Missouri State bird.

An Animated Course

I’ve been teaching an introduction to animation course each summer for the last ten years to 7th, 8th and 9th graders. The summer program is the Joseph Baldwin Academy, sponsored by Truman State University. It is three intense weeks of learning traditional cell-frame animation, stop-motion photography animation and claymation. I have managed to excite aContinue reading “An Animated Course”

Not my monkey

I did this poster design, inspired by old circus posters and the old saying about problems not being someone’s responsibility. In celebration of no longer being the Art Department Chair. As of July 1st, 2016 – stick a fork in me, I’m done. Save

Better late…

Amazingly, I find myself with a few moments of free time. So, I thought I would post a couple more class demo pieces that I did last semester for my illustration class. One demo bird and a gouache demo. The gouache piece is a portrait of a teacher my daughter worked with in Lesotho, southContinue reading “Better late…”

Doing the digital thing again

I’ve been working with digital illustration again. It seems spring semester is when I do digital work for some reason. Fall is for watercolor and spring is digital. Go figure. I am almost done with my stint in academic administration as Department Chair. Can’t wait to get back to more creative endeavors on a consistentContinue reading “Doing the digital thing again”