Manuel Albarrán is an artist who specializes in wearable metal art. He is a pioneer in developing metal accessories on flat metal plate. He has recently worked  with Rihanna, the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Tyra Banks, Milla Jovovich and Zoe Saldana. 

He recently visited the class Fantasy Art, taught by José Villarrubia in the Illustration Department as well as two classes in the Animation Department. Among the pieces that he showed the students (and they got to try on!) was a helmet commissioned by the Black Eye Peas and featured in the video: “Imma Be Rocking That Body” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUFsQ5lTo6g)

To see more of his work go to http://www.manuelalbarran.com

Jon Fuqua’s Narrative class along with Alain Corbel’s and Warren Linn’s Visual Journalism students explore our stories and environments in Baltimore and beyond. March 24-April 7 in The Julian Allen Illustration Gallery, Fox 3rd floor.

Author/Art Director Steven Heller takes an historic and humorous look at the graphics generated for the Olympics in this video critique:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/24/sports/olympics/pictograms-interactive.html

The comic-book story  “The Way Home” by writer Joshua Dysart, artist Pat Masioni, and colorist Jose Villarrubia, has been nominated for Story of the Year for the 2010 Glyph Awards. The story appeared in Unknown Soldier #13-14, and was the US debut of Pat Masioni, who was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The story takes place in Acholiland, Uganda, in 2002 during the war between the Lord’s Resistance Army and Ugandan People’s Defence Force.

The Glyph Awards, honor the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color.

http://www.popcultureshock.com/2010-glyph-comics-awards-nominees/54766/

Jaime Zollars’ image,  ”The Maze, She Breathes” was accepted into this years’ annual.  The acrylic, Graphite, and Ink illustration was created for Gallery Nucleus’ 5th Anniversary Show.

Brandon Wu’s drawing from Visual Journalism was featured in today’s Baltimore Sun. It’s on page three, in Laura Vozzella’s column “The art of democracy”.  Warren’s class was attending a City Council meeting to sketch democracy in action, catching the eye of a reporter.  The class has also sketched on the subway, in Camden Yards and other areas around the city.

Concepts class (I & II) provides a forum for students to practice the development of ideas as visual communication utilizing a variety of commercial categories to convey information. The goal is to problem-solve text, stories, music, etc. with images that give life to ideas, mood and narrative. This is an independent analysis of content in the creative search for new ideas or solutions. It doesn’t necessarily give visual representation to the content literally, but rather should bring a new ideas, mood or point of view to the text or project. A strong idea is the starting place- the foundation- of successful illustration.

Work from the classes will be on display in the Illustration Gallery from February 18th to March 1st.

Faculty:

Rebecca Bradley
Allan Comport
Rachel Salomon

Congratulations to the following IL students for being accepted in the 2010 Society of Illustrators Student Competition. The exhibition of their work along with student winners from various art colleges around the US will be held in May when cash prizes are announced. you can view the MICA winners art at full size at http://www.soicompetitions.org/?section=gallery&competition_id=48&

Al Marks

Colin Schappi

Nargol Arefi

Rebecca Mock

Yelena Bryksenkova

Cam Floyd

Willem Rosenthal

Babs Tarr

Alex Uyeno