Welcome back to another week of Industrious Illustrating! This time, we’re going back to looking at sketches developing a more finished story.
The AEIOU in the title stands for Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects, and Users, which is an acronym that my Drawing Visualization professor came up with for these sketch assignments. I was supposed to draw at least five sketches per page focused around these topics in relation to a planned short comic.
Activities
Environments
Interactions
Objects
Users
Not all of these sketches are going to be directly used in my short comic. The short comic will focus on an ex-soldier who contemplates the names he’s been called in the past when he has to decide whether or not he’ll answer to his civilian name of “Toshiaki Mizushima”. Some of these characters will appear in his flashbacks as former friends or current comrades, but they may not appear exactly the same as they appear in these sketches. Additionally, there’s a much longer post-apocalyptic cyberpunk story involving these characters and this world, so the short comic is just a teaser of the longer narrative I plan on telling someday.
Since this comic assignment is due next week, I should have a finished comic to show off for next week’s column. See you guys next Friday!
Good afternoon everybody! I hope that you all are doing well! I had a wonderful weekend that I wanted to share with you all. Yesterday was Holi, the Festival of Colors, my absolutely favorite Hindu festival. We all get together, wear white, and play tag with colorful powder, adorning each other in beautiful hues of pink, orange, yellow, blue, red, and more. If you are interested in reading more about Holi check out my post 
In this post, I wanted to share something else besides Holi. A few weeks back, I was presented with a beautiful opportunity. I was hired by the Ypsilanti Public Library to demonstrate and teach young kids and families how to make Rangoli. Rangoli is the art of adorning pavements and house floors with colored powder or fine colored sand. Traditionally, during holidays, homes and temples are decorated with beautiful mandalas. Generally, natural and pure products are used to create these beautiful designs. When I did Rangoli this time, I used fine colored sand in squeeze bottles to make intricate designs. We decided this could be the best form of creating the Rangoli because it is easy to handle by children.
This was a really wonderful day. I demonstrated how Rangoli is made, creating original designs on the floor of the library. Kids watched and then were allowed to go wild, using the bright colors to create their own abstract and wonderful creations. The kids, of all ages ranging from toddlers to pre-teens, were very sweet, loved learning about the history of Rangoli, and created their own wonderful art!
