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HELLO!
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FALL SEMESTER
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Image Harvest
Bookbinding
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Paper Engineering
Letterpress
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Sewing
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Selt-Publishing
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Digital Fabrication + Art Market
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The Sketchbook Project
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SPRING SEMESTER
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Words on Wheels
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Stop-Motion Animation
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Hand Lettering
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Pattern Making
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Self-Directed Project
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TO CONCLUDE
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THANK YOU!
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My name is Emily Joynton, and I am an illustrator from Texas. This idea book chronicles the progress of my first year (2015-2016) in the MFA Illustration Practice program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. When I was accepted into the Illustration Practice program, I told myself that this was an opportunity of a lifetime and that I’d better not mess it up. Before the semester actually started, I was terrified of failure, letting myself down and everyone who had supported me. This year presented challenges from all sides, but I maintained determination throughout to make the most of this experience and hardly left room for any self-doubt. As a result, I can say with confidence that the work I did in the last year was fulfilling, exciting, terrifying at times, but always rewarding. I made mistakes and some projects failed, but these experiences have only contributed to the strength I’ve gained as an illustrator in this program.
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Almost immediately after the semester began, we jumped into planning for our first exhibit. It was a little terrifying to know that the first project we created as the new class of Illustration Practice would be on display for all to see, but I was determined to accept the challenge. This determination set in motion a mindset that continued for the entire semester: greet the project head on, and know that without a doubt, you can do it. I spent the summer before MICA fascinated by the different ways illustrators were using dimension in their work. I decided to give it a try myself, and created 2 shadowboxes featuring animals acting out visual puns. The process was time-consuming but ultimately rewarding. I hand-sculpted and painted four small figurines that I was very proud of. Creating the environments to fit the figures proved to be the bigger challenge, but I marked this first project as a success in experimentation and execution.
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As our first official making workshop, this was where I really felt like my time in Illustration Practice began. Val Lucas of Bowerbox Press led us in three different bookbinding techniques. It was fascinating to learn a new skill that was so polished and yet so simple. This marked the beginning of my love for creating an “object:� something you could hold, something precious, something made with time and care. While I loved trying the bookbinding techniques taught to us by Val, I was determined to challenge myself with the reaction piece. A good friend had been passing around a book full of new and creative ways to create non-traditional books, and I was drawn to the intricate construction and end result of a tunnel book. I made a lot of mistakes while designing and building my own tunnel book, and I remember staying up all night sketching and painting the panels. But I was exhilarated as I walked home at eight in the morning on a Saturday – I was really beginning to feel like I belonged in this program and could rise to the challenge, whatever it may be. I redid parts of the book later in the semester and there are still parts I might go back and change, but overall I was happy with the finished product. I was excited to see the possibilities of what I could do just by trying new things.
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Colette Fu led this workshop and impressed us all with her amazing pop-up art books. The way she made the pages lift off and take on a life of their own was unlike anything I’d ever seen or considered possible.
Once we were given the chance to try pop-up ourselves, the actual engineering aspect of this workshop was daunting for me. I had a really hard time understanding how to make the paper move like I wanted it to.
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In the end, my initial paper engineering reaction piece was a complete flop in both construction and concept. I had tried to create a series of cards to show the emotional progression of a girl waiting by the phone, waiting for a boy to call her. I over-complicated the physical construction, and actually missed a step when making the cards, creating a serious balance problem – the pop-up could not really stand on its own. And after discussing the concept in group critique and becoming increasingly disappointed with what I had created, I decided to scrap the whole project and start from scratch on a new piece. 15
I decided to keep some of the original elements – I loved the bright paper I used in the first reaction piece, and I was happy with the drawing style and the way I used the oil pastels. I chose a much simpler construction and added a few pop-up elements to give it a bit more dimension.
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As for concept, I had been most successful with telling my own stories from my own life, so I chose to illustrate a more fantastical and humorously grotesque take on my recent experience with my roommates in setting mousetraps. I gave the accordion-style piece two opposing sides so the story could be told from two perspectives. While it was not a perfect piece, I was much happier with the way this one turned out. 19
In undergrad, I discovered printmaking and promptly fell in love. Upon learning that we would be doing a letterpress workshop in Illustration Practice, my interest was piqued, but I was skeptical about the process. What if it were less about the organic nature of woodcuts, or more refined than the elbow grease of linocut, or too far removed from the unpredictability of lithography and intaglio? What I found was a new way to print that was that the perfect balance of the old things I loved about printmaking, and new things about letterpress that made the process more efficient, precise, and really satisfying. Kyle and Kim hosted us in their space, Baltimore Print Studios, and led the workshop. I decided to make something I could turn into a really special Christmas card.
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For this project, I was determined to make something useful. I also wanted to incorporate embroidery, which I had discovered in my Dimensional Storytelling elective class. I decided to make a padded pouch to hold my Wacom tablet.
I wanted the embroidery illustration to portray the range of emotion I experienced upon receiving the tablet – scared to use it (because I didn’t know anything about digital illustration at that point), trying it for the first time and feeling a little excited but still unsure, and finally elation in discovering what it allows me to do.
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I am happy with the embroidery, ambivalent about the appliqued panels, and now able to laugh about the pathetic construction of the pouch. I was so excited to try sewing again, but it was almost as difficult for me as it was the first time I made a skirt with my mom. Never using a heavy-duty metal zipper again. But in the end, I like this piece, and it serves its purpose – it holds my tablet and keeps it safe!
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I went into this project knowing that I wanted to try something challenging.
So much of my work up to this point had in some way been lighthearted or incorporated humor, and in critique I had been encouraged to try something different and expand my content. I’ve always wrestled with feelings of guilt in regard to how I treat those closest to me, whether it’s as simple as not calling my parents enough or as complex as the way I show affection or compassion in a relationship or friendship. I wanted to find a way to express these feelings. I did not want to harbor expectations of finding resolve with these stories, but I wanted to start working through these emotions by acknowledging them to myself and others, writing about them, and illustrate them. 24
We had been assigned to create three zines. Mine focused on my feelings of guilt with my parents, my two pen pals, and my boyfriend.
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I felt – and my peers and professors agreed – that this was my most successful piece of the semester. It moved me in a different direction, one that was both painful and cathartic in process and subject matter. 28
Beyond the content, I also wanted them to feel like a precious object, to show that every step of creating this work was considered deeply. I printed each zine individually and then created an accordion-style way of connecting all three zines by a middle panel.
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Coming up with a product to sell at Art Market was a bit of a struggle. In the end, inspired by items that sold successfully at last year’s Art Market, I decided to use the skills we learned in our digital fabrication workshop and carry them over to create wooden ornaments to sell. To be honest, the dfab workshop was overwhelmingly frustrating and disheartening – the dfab lab instructor was difficult to work with, the software and overall process of using the laser cutter was completely foreign to me, and therefore the whole experience was very challenging. But I had somewhat successfully created two prototype ornaments for my dfab lab reaction piece, and was determined to make it work 25 more times. Sidenote: this thinking was a running theme for all of my first year in Illustration Practice. Just because something was hard or didn’t work exactly how I predicted or intended did not mean that I was about to give up on it. I saw this year as my best opportunity to discover, explore, fail, and succeed. Above all, this year was my chance to learn as much as possible, and I did my best to make sure that happened.
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After several grueling sessions at the laser cutter, I hand-painted each individual ornament. Each ornament featured one of four designs of women I admire. I then created a logo and printed my tags and packaging. Art Market taught me how to create a real product, and how to prepare it to sell.
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I learned that my process was extremely flawed – it took me so much longer to create my items than I expected and therefore my profit was greatly reduced. But I learned valuable lessons about creating and selling product during Art Market, lessons I will remember in the future.
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If ever I needed a break or a warm-up to starting a bigger project, or just wanted to put off doing something more complicated: enter The Sketchbook Project. This was always a casual release that was nice to have around all of the fall semester. I don’t feel like any great work came out of it, but I do believe that other great work happened because I was able to work out all the silly stuff in these sketchbooks first. 34
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Every year, the Illustration Practice program participates in this event along with Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and Baltimore public schools. We each received two poems written by students grades K-12 and were assigned to illustrate the poetry. At the end, one of our poems would be chosen for print and installation inside an MTA vehicle. After a huge blizzard closed down the school for nearly five days in Feburary, I found it very had to get back into the rhythm of work I felt I had at the end of the fall semester. My struggle with this project was partly due to that and several other factors – I had a very hard time connecting with the poems and was simultaneously trying to teach myself the basics of digital illustration on Photoshop. In the end, I was not happy with either of my illustrations and felt discouraged by my process and work.
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Streetlights By Niall McGee, Grade 2 Streetlights will light tonight rolling cars enchant the light, enchant the light in the sky and under ground high to rise are streetlights. Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School Teacher: Mr. Carson Korman
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ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN: EMILY JOYNTONV / MICA MFA IN ILLUSTRATION PRACTICE ’17 ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN: YOUR NAME / MICA MFA IN ILLUSTRATION PRACTICE ’17 ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN: EMILY JOYNTONV / MICA MFA IN ILLUSTRATION PRACTICE ’17
A Joint Project of: Public Charter School Baltimore Montessori
Baltimore School of the Arts Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle Fallstaff Elementary/Middle
KIPP: Uiima Village Academy Holabird Academy Holabird Academy
Maryland Institute College of Art John Rodgers Elementary/Middle Midtown Academy KIPP Ujima Village Academy
Maryland Institute College of Art The Mount Washington School
Roland Park Elementary/Middle School The Midtown Academy The Stadium School
A Joint Project of: Public Charter School Baltimore Montessori
Baltimore School of the Arts Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle
KIPP: Uiima Village Academy
Fallstaff Elementary/Middle Holabird Academy Maryland Institute College of Art John Rodgers Elementary/Middle Midtown Academy KIPP Ujima Village Academy Maryland Institute College of Art The Mount Washington School
Holabird Academy
Roland Park Elementary/Middle School The Midtown Academy The Stadium School
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Over the course of a weekend, my partner Fang and I experimented with different stop-motion animation techniques and created our very own animation. The collaboration aspect was challenging but ultimately good; the experimentation was exhausting but overall really fun. This was my first attempt with stop-motion animation, and I found the process fun but so tedious! The effect was almost worth all those tiny nudges and what seemed like endless number of frames we shot for what turned out to be a very short, very weird short film.
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For this workshop, we first experimented with creating letters in ways I would have never considered on my own – drawing by memory with eyes closed, drawing from a distance, creating letters with torn and folded paper, etc. Then we each chose our assignment from three options. I opted to create a book jacket for a fake book, one that had been mentioned in a film but did not actually exist.
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Are Snakes Necessary? felt like a title puzzling enough that I could work with it. I decided to create the jacket digitally, and already had a very clear idea of color palette. I really enjoyed constructing the image to reference the title and also stand alone in beauty and mystery.
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Once the jacket was complete, printed, and wrapped around a real book, the effect was magical. This was the beginning of feeling like I was creating “real things,� tangible objects produced with professional quality and had marketable possibilities.
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Before we began this workshop, I was very skeptical about the pattern-making industry, thinking it was dull and unimaginative, factory-like, churning out twenty floral patterns a day with no purpose other than to sell them. Why would you want to create something to be sent off to a large company, not knowing where it would get printed and how it would be used? I don’t think skepticism was not unfounded, but I do think that it was misplaced. I actually thoroughly enjoyed the exercises in creating patterns that were taught to us by Amy and Leann of Printfresh, and I continued to enjoy the assignment to create three patterns based on a theme. I chose to illustrate my roller skates as an homage to my days of frequent skating and my heroes in the skating world. Making patterns was challenging but fun, and combined equal levels of organic creativity and logical design. I found that combination to be ultimately very rewarding, and see myself making lots of patterns in the future.
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The size and timeline for this final project were both daunting. This project existed to prepare us for our thesis year next year by allowing us to test out a larger idea and carry it out over the last full month of the semester. Coming off of the success of my Feeling of Guilt zine in the fall, I wanted to try writing and illustrating another personal narrative. This time, I wanted to create a longer form comic.
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Over spring break, a friend from college had died of septic shock. I saw it all unfold on Facebook, and it seemed unbelievable – I knew nothing about septic shock at the time and everything happened so quickly. I had already been doing some writing that week and decided to lay down my thoughts about this sudden event. As I began writing, the essay morphed from talking about the present into recalling memories of knowing this friend in college and the embarrassing feelings of jealous and selfishness I felt at that time. When I sat down to write I did not have a clear direction of what I was trying to say, or the story I was trying to tell about this event and how I felt about it. The end result was raw and so much more personal than I had intended it to be. Like with the Feeling of Guilt zine, I struggled with portraying heavy emotion in my illustration. I was very careful not to make light of the tragic event, but to maintain honesty in my own embarrassing feelings. The final illustrated result had a completely different flow to it than the original story with text alone. I am proud of the final result, how was I able to tell this story and illustrate it to capture a lot of different and difficult feelings. I see it as a good indication that I can do more of this in the future. Here are several pages from my first completed copy of the comic.
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I look forward to next year with more optimism and confidence than ever. There is still an element of fear, fear of failure or bad time management, or any of the many unforeseen obstacles I’m sure are to come. But I also look ahead knowing that I can overcome these struggles, and that from my struggles sometimes comes the best work.
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My success this year has been a result of the wonderful support and guidance I have received from several very special people. Huge thanks to Kimberly Ellen Hall for her constant encouragement, and for always urging me to work in ways that may not be comfortable. I am a better illustrator because of her support throughout the whole year. She has helped me work through fear and doubt, and has given me great guidance to create work I am very proud of. Thanks also goes to Whitney Sherman, for inviting me to be a part of the Illustration Practice program, and for always believing in me. I will be forever grateful to her for this opportunity. A big thank you to my parents, my sister, and my partner Manny, whose unwavering support has carried me through the year. And of course, thanks to my ILP peers for being there to inspire me, challenge me, and help me get through some very long nights. Here’s to the next year!
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