Lillie Wesley at MCAD
Hello, its Lillie! I’m back from my pre college session at MCAD. I’ll be splitting up the details into several different blog posts, so the information isn't overwhelming.
July 14th was check in day at the school. I moved into the dorms and added my personal decorations. I had three other roommates, one was my close friend Maren and two other girls. The day was mainly for meeting both fellow students and instructors, all who were very welcoming. I had two TAs for my class, both graduates of MCAD, after dinner they gave us a tour of the facilities we would be using. The classrooms were very modern and I couldn't wait to get started working.
The day after I had my first drawing class. The classes at these camps are long, similar to that of regular college classes. My drawing class was three hours and my comic class, which was my major, was 5. In my drawing class we worked on large contours with charcoal and newsprint. Comic Class was after lunch, we were given free comics as a welcoming gift and then set to work on our first assignment. We went down to the library, right across from MCADs in house art supplies shop. Our task was to find a comic we thought told a compelling story in three pages, scan the pages and then write a script based on them for someone else to interpret through a fully inked comic. After Dinner, we were given the opportunity to meet former MCAD graduates and view their work in the MFA gallery.
July 16th I had Art history class and Ideation class in the morning, one after the other. In art history we learned about forgotten and bizarre superheroes from old comics. In Ideation class we discussed the idea of a forest and what that means. These classes were for students to gain a deeper understanding of their major and how to approach creating art, important for any artist to learn. I had a Portfolio review during lunch and received some very positive feedback as well as some suggestions for what to add and change when applying to colleges. In Comic class I started penciling my comic based on another person’s script. It was a horror comic, that I suspected was Uzumaki by Juji Ito, a Japanese manga artist who specializes in horror. Studio hours were mandatory from 8-9 for the whole program, but they go until just before 12:00. I stayed until 10 to work on my comic.
The fourth day I had drawing class again, where we learned and practiced the fundamentals of value. We drew a lot of animal skulls to practice for some reason. I worked on my comic assignment throughout class and into studio hours. I finished in in the evening and then went to the college center to make buttons with other students for fun.
That's it for the beginning of my trip, in the next blog post I’ll be detailing the middle period of my pre college session!
