Recently interviewed by a underclassman

1) Person’s name, job title, place of employment, contact information (telephone number or email address). State method of interview (in person, over telephone, etc.)

·      Michael Scott Hull

·      Studio Art Professor

·      Daytona State College

·      386-506-3347 | Michael_hull@faclonmail.daytonastate.edu

2) How did you decide on your career?

·      This is actually my second career; I was in the medical field for 20 years prior to teaching. Art is my passion and my God given talent, I have been told through my years that I would make a great instructor and so I followed through. The best career choice I could of made. 

Professor Hull B.A.S., M.F.A., L.D.O.

 

3) What preparation or coursework did you complete for this job?

·      I earned a very competitive Masters Degree (MFA) from Full Sail University.

4) What advice would you give beginning college students about things they could start doing now to help them prepare to enter your career field?

·      Become adapt with the virtual teaching and information world (this means social networking as well, make sure you have face time). The future will be teaching online and developing tools to better assist instructors. Stay current and be fearless. 

5) What do you like most about your career?

·      This is a very exciting time in the teaching process the techniques are changing. It is sort of becoming “out with the old and in with the new”. So being at the forefront of this quickening gives me new challenges everyday. This challenges my imagination on a daily basis as well.

6) What is the biggest challenge you’ve encountered?

·      There is a generation gap between the professors of 20 years ago and today’s new professors. This creates a language barrier as well as, idea barrier. The new instructors are more adverse in technology and virtual problem solving. Sometimes this threatens the older generation and it creates a block in the growth process of a college. This does not happen all the time but still it is a big problem. The X generation, which, is starting to instruct more and more, have a hard time communicating with the prior generation. The older generation sometimes feels that respect and acknowledgement of the hierarchy is not observed. This is far from the truth, we as young instructors are aware of the dues paid and we are here to make sure their hard work carries on.

7) Does your career have a big impact (negative or positive) on your personal life?

·      Sometimes all work can be stressful on a family. For the most part it is positive.

8) How do you spend a typical day at work (how’s your time spent)?

·      My job is very physical and mental so I am always working either with large heavy objects or firing kilns as well as, servicing my many online sites. I stay connected with artist and galleries along with educators all over the world. So my day is very busy “work hard, play hard”.

9) What personal skills or qualities do you see as being essential for success in your career?

·      Research, knowledge both current and historical, political knowledge, speaking ability (this is hard sometimes), current events, technical knowledge, intellectual property. I am also very fluent in all art mediums well except for tattooing. (Which is coming soon to a college venue)

10) How does someone advance in your career?

·      Being published and building accolades as well as community involvement. Gaining more education in the studio art field is difficult; the MFA is a terminal degree and it rarely offers a chance for a PHD, but if one could earn one then that could help toward advancement. Continue to grow and stay current and research, research, research.

11) Are there any moral or ethical challenges that tend to arise in your career?

·      Always, teaching can be stressful you have many different cultures and beliefs that can clash. Also one thing to consider is that an artist is a unique individual they can blend into many different social and financial groups. They can mingle in low class as well as be accepted in higher class. It is quite unique. 

BE CREATIVE!

12) If you had to do it over again, would you choose the same career?

·      100% YES!

Digital Image to Vector Painting (intermediate skill level) Ai

This is a tutorial aimed at developing a decent vector painting geared around a digital image. The exercise is to get an intermediate designer more comfortable with the pen tool as well as the brush tool. The color swatches are mostly stock I tweaked a little opacity and some base colors to fit my personal taste. However, the design is simple and can offer a new designer away to create some fun illustrations in vector.

The first step is to open a new document. Choose a web format that way you can share your final product with others. Next you will have to use an image from your collection. I did not provide one at this time or if you have a Grab or Snagit  program then you can just copy mine. 

 Choose an image (you can also snag mine if you like)

 I have 8 different layers which, I have developed I used the default color codes but you can choose yours to benefit your design style.

We will start with the Shirt layer. (Red code)

I hope you are familiar with the pen tool we will be using it considerably with in this tutorial. 
I outlined the shirt trying to be precise as possible. (The color swatch is the neutrals) I then moved on to the shadows from the wrinkles which, are on the shirt. I used a gradient fill to form the shadow highlights.

Next we are going to outline the pants with the pen tool. And I am going to change my text bubble to a Blue text bubble, Sorry, I did not really want to go back and adjust at this time. I know Lazy right?

Continue to use the pen tool in order to create the highlights of the jeans and the wrinkle accents. Again I used the gradient swatches from the tool bar to get my taste in contrast. Also you may want to adjust the opacity with in the layer so can see the wrinkles and accents better from the jeans.

Now that you are starting to get the hang of it repeat the same technique for the shoes, you do not need to worry about the socks unless you are OCD. I used the pen tool for shoes as well.

The skin layer; I change the opacity to 50% so I could see through my color mask and I oriented the gradients as close as possible. I performed the bottom face layer with one mask, then slowly applying the dark tones and accents to the chin and neck. I also included in this layer some highlights for the hair I felt the hair could use some contrast to give it body. Just like Pert.

Try and follow the dark shadows and give them a neutral color that is not to much different from the original. After all the natural shadows are not that much different. The bottom left highlights of the hair were created with the brush tool and I included a fill color as well as the outline to achieve this effect. Experiment with this it is quite fun.

The eye is not that difficult I did not spend much time on making it perfectly realistic after all this is an exercise. I used both the pen tool to outline and the eclipse shape in order to achieve the look. there are several layers of gradient. Look at the layers in bottom right corner.

The lips mouth and under the eye are somewhat considered shadows. I spent very little time on these areas as well. But you can take your time and develop a nice look it is up to you.

The hair was the most fun I had a blast creating the gradients and the difference in color with polar opposites. The layers are the same I duplicated them and gave each a job. The bottom layer is to highlight the outer edge and the top layer is to highlight the inner scalp area. I adjusted the opacity of the outer color on the top layer to 0% that way the bottom color would show through. Play around with it.

With a 3 point round brush I added some hair strokes I did not care about the look greatly because I went back in adjusted the stroke to basic and added a tapered end. 

This is the final product over the original image. Fun, fun.

This is the final vector image with out any background on a transparent png. format.

And finally the image with a quick ramp background with 3D colored spheres. I hope you had fun.

Good Luck all, please, please, like this and drop me a line with any questions.

40th Annual Volusia Student Create

So I was at the 40th annual Volusia County Student Create last night. Awards were given and honors were bestowed. The work within the studio was of wonderful skilled quality. So props to the teachers for the guidance and direction and accolades to the students with there wonderful young minds. They showed fearlessness and bold conviction. I was lucky enough to judge the show and it was tough. However, I was able to choose a piece that was emotionally contrived and showed strong weighted strokes and nice blends with an unforgiving medium. (charcoal, 4th pic.) Runner up (5th pic.) is a colorful music inspired piece it was technically sound and the composition was developed and completed. Both artist show maturity above their years. I have included some other honorable mentions as well.

 

A look at a basic revolve technique within CS5 Illustrator.

I produces this video manly for my youtube site in order to offer something a little different but also very basic. I like the technique and I have used it on many platforms. I like the way I tried to cover everything but failed. Yet, it helps when I see my videos and get feedback from others.