Composition & Staging for Visual Development

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This class was designed and is taught by my father Robert Watts.  He designed the class to emphasize the brick and mortar concepts of picture making so often lacking or not really taught at all in today’s schools and institutions of art.  Although tailored to students looking to go into visual development this class would be equally beneficial to the illustrator or fine artist.  As a matter of fact I felt so strongly about the class and its material that I came in to take it.  I try to sit in on at least one class a term on top of my teaching responsibilities and professional deadlines.  I find it absolutely pivotal to continue ones training indefinitely.  I have included some of the work I did for the assignments given in the class as well as some of my father’s demos.  He would commonly spend a good portion of the class going over unique ways to approach perspective, invention and storytelling.   The assignments ranged  from designing the environment for a Dragon’s Lair, Pirates approaching a sunken Galleon  to The Great Wall of China being built to Hunters being approached by a Yeti.  They are great exercises for developing and cultivating your visual memorization ability which in my opinion is essential for successful picture making in any genre!

THE CLASS DESCRIPTION:

The class will present a process and workflow for the invention and depiction of key scenes, environments, and character whose purpose is: to give life and substance to a specific story line, while preserving the director or production designer’s vision.

Some of the handouts went over unique techniques for breaking down compositions using alphanumericals to organize the center of interest in a picture.

Here my father goes over thumbnails and how to simplify key shapes for effectiveness in conveying the essential elements.  Simplification and readability are key.

 

Here he is showing designs for dragons to be a part of the Dragon’s Lair scenario.

 

Here are some of the thumbnails I came up with.

 

 

In this image I had to create the thumbnails for a group of pirates approaching a sunken Galleon.  I then took one of the ideas and developed it further just for fun!

 

 

In these images my father is showing the students how to develop and cast proper shadows using shorthand, easily understood concepts-a monumental task for most artists.

 

 

My father showing a great technique for how to find the meandering Wall of China-a difficult problem indeed.  It is fun to watch him work these scenarios out.

 

 

Here are some of my sketches for this assignment.

 

 

Here are some more examples from the class.

 

 

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