The above image is inspired by the recent release of ground breaking 3-D movie AVATAR produced by James Cameron in early 2010.

See Internet Movie Data Base web site: http://www.imdb.com/
title/tt0499549/

See Wipedia website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Avatar_(2009_film)

Provenance Notes:  KEN ILLUSTRATION (3 poses above graphic):  These concept illustrations were done for Clarendon Elementary School [ http://portal.sfusd.edu] in order to develop a character that appealed to young children ages 5-11. The idea was to create some sort of mascots that could be used as a theme; something that the kids would be introduced to from kindergarten, and then "grow up" with during their 6 years there. The characters were mainly going to be used on class worksheets to give encouragement or helpful hints and tips. They were originally going to be presented to the students for the first time during their annual Undokai or "Sports Day"-- to be printed on fliers, banners and small armbands for the kids. However, there wasn't enough time to create the images and print everything, so I'll be drawing the characters in Undokai suit in the near future for 2010.

I named this particular character Ken. I guess I chose Ken because its short and cute, and is a common Japanese name that's easy to pronounce. Dually it's a fairy common American name for boys. The Kanji character for "dog" can be read as "ken" as well. I decided his breed would be a Shiba-inu, a small orange dog with a curly tail. I tried to design Ken in a simple style so he could easily be drawn in different situations. And since all assignment sheets are Xeroxed, a lot of detail would be lost if included. Here he's in 3 different poses; the first one I thought would be good to place next to word problems or science worksheets, as he's studying something intently below him. I figured it would be versatile enough to use on a variety of different assginments. The second pose is just him laughing, I thought it would be a cute addition to worksheets, maybe next to a fun riddle or some funny dialogue. The third one is an upset version of Ken, I was really just working out his character design and didn't have any particular purpose.

Ken is one of 3 characters that I created for the school-- I really enjoyed working on him since animals are my favorite subject to draw. They're cute and are easily stylized to create a fun image.

The teachers at Clarendon hoped that with these characters, they could provide the children with something "constant" as they move from teacher to teacher and classroom to classroom each year, and perhaps even build a feeling of family and community through the cute and furry creatures.

NOTE:  re CLARENDON SCHOOL MENTIONED ABOVE
http://portal.sfusd.edu "Awarded the California Distinguished School designation, Clarendon Alternative School [in San Francisco] students consistently reflect outstanding achievement. All students participate in an enriched appropriate curriculum for gifted and high-ability students in all classrooms K-5. Our curriculum, content and teaching practices are assessment based and are curriculum relevant to richly diverse students' goal and needs; and reflective and collaborative planning within staff and among resources who work with our students."

"Clarendon has two distinctive programs available to students. Our Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program (JBBP) offers Japanese language and cultural instruction for both native Japanese and native English speakers and actively promotes parent participation. Our Second Community Program actively promotes strong parent participation, project-based learning and teaches Italian to all students. Parent organization fund raise to support wide varieties of enrichment activities including dance, music, visual art, physical education, computer and field trips."

The school has private before and after school on-site childcare programs with a separate enrollment process. (tel: 759-1897) [quotes fr. website 2010.2.13 portal.sfusd.edu]

Provenance Notes for Illustration "MASHA AND THE BEAR": the larger graphic to the right of this text:
This was a end-of-term assignment for my first illustration class. The criteria was to illustrate a one or two sentence excerpt from a fable of my choice-- I chose to to a Russian folktale called "Masha and the Bear". It's a story of a little girl who's caught by a bear when she wandered off into the woods, and escapes him by hiding in a pie basket on his back. I was really picky about the tale I was to draw, because I wanted choose one that included animals, but just ones I actually enjoyed drawing. I was torn between the Masha story and a fox tale by Aesop-- I usually draw out some thumbnails to work out composition and I really liked the centered-bear. I felt that the center composition portrayed the strength and power of the bear the best, even though centering the main subject is (usually) a huge no-no at in the art world. Originally, the bear didn't have his head turned toward the basket; after critique from my teacher and classmates I tweaked it a little so you could see his expression. I'm not completely satisfied with his face though... to me he looks more angry than suspicious.

Here's the sentence my illustration is based on:

"...Masha crawled into the basket and covered herself with the pies. The bear came in, and there was the basket all ready to go. So he strapped the basket on his back and started off."

So in my drawing the bear is walking on a path in the woods, and is slightly turned toward his back because he feels some movement and is suspicious. I had fun with this illustration since I got to paint the main character up close, but the size I was working with was large (11.5"x17.5")-- which meant I had to really pay attention to detail and background. I decided to go with a soft, warm color palette so I could convey a quiet, sunny afternoon in the woods. I really wanted to get it right so I mixed yellow in with every color in the painting. I had a lot of fun with the foliage and sunlight coming through the trees-- I like putting shiny accents in my drawings!

I pretty much incorporated everything I had learned that semester about color, composition and concepts, so it summate's all the improvements I made. Overall I'm really happy with it.

Graphic by Chie Boyd:  "So what do student illustrators do while riding on San Francisco transit buses?"

Re: Image on the left:  Correction Note to publisher Neal Chan from Chie Boyd on above illustration:  "... I wanted to point out-- the drawing of me on the bus-- its actually a (Nintendo) DSi I'm playing with, not a cell phone haha. Dunno if you play video games or not but its a portable system" 2010.01.22 (This note after Neal thought she was "Tweeting" in the picture and added the text "Tweet Tweet" on the graphic - so until he has a chance to change the text on the image - the sample will have to do for now ;-) n.c. Feb. 2010 )

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