“Demonstrating the Craft” at the Watts Illustration Bootcamp

This past week marked the start of our first “Watts Illustration Boot Camp,” an intense 6-day workshop designed to strengthen our students’ illustrative storytelling abilities and improve their technical skills within their chosen medium.  The workshop’s instructors (award-winning illustrators and Watts Atelier instructors E.M. Gist, Lucas Graciano, and Michael C. Hayes) have been spending hours of one-on-one time with the boot camp’s students, providing insight into illustrative techniques while helping each student complete their final assignments for the boot camp.

Between these one-on-one sessions, our instructors have been giving focused lectures and completing live demonstrations for their students.  Each of our instructors focused on a subject they’re known for in the illustrative world, and answered questions from the students as they demonstrated their craft.  Enjoy this look at our instructors’ demos from the boot camp, and stay tuned for more coverage (including paintings from the students themselves) from the final days of our Illustration Boot Camp!

 

E.M. Gist’s monster portrait painting demo, highlighting Gist’s years of life/portrait painting expertise, and his understanding of color-as-value

 

 

 

Michael C. Hayes demonstrates techniques to paint reflective surfaces and armor

 

 

 

Lucas Graciano’s dragon demonstration showed students how to indicate texture in their paintings