May 7th, National Teacher Day

May 7th, 2013 is National Teacher Day.  A chance for you to go beyond recognizing your mom or dad (though they are really important) and thank someone who helped you learn or to see things a little differently and in the process gave you the knowledge and tools to be a better you.  So, if you haven't already, send out a shout to a teacher that made a difference in your life.  It doesn't have to be a Teacher teacher (someone who makes his or her living by teaching) it could be anyone who has helped to shape the you that is you.  A mentor, tutor, your sensei, your dance teacher, that guy down the street who was always working in his garage and showed you how to dismount the air compressor of a 1980's Camaro.  Send an email, a card, some flowers, a new wrench or anything to that person and let them know how much they changed your life.  They may be so surprised and touched that this simple gesture will make their entire week.  Do it right now!

(I'll wait)

(Are you done?  Good work)

I have a huge list of folks who have given me their time and their knowledge, and to all of you I want to say thank you ever so much for all you've done for me.  Mrs. Gregory, Mrs. Weines, Mrs. Mitchell, Mrs. Goodwin, Mrs. Wofford, Miss Blaylock (who got me into science), a special thanks to Mr. William Smart from Roosevelt High School for encouraging me to go into the arts, Alice "Bunny" Carter, Courtney Granner, John Clapp, Jim Hummel, Barron Storey and all of the instructors who demanded so much of me as an illustration student at SJSU that I both hated and loved them. Even some of you who follow this blog are teachers and I thank you you all for joining me in this often difficult business of passing on tidbits of knowledge...Happy National Teacher Day!

I am not one to toot my own horn, even though I run this blog which is a tiny bit narcissistic, but I am posting some items I have received recently that made the experience of teaching gratifying.  First I was given an invitation to this year's SJSU Honors Convocation, where student Dean's Scholars and President's Scholars are recognized for their high achieving academic work.  Of course I went and brought an entourage of great people to cheer on Samia and all of the other hard working students from the Animation/Illustration Program at SJSU.  So to you, Samia, well done!  The stairs and 'butt-less' cat are an inside joke from her time in my class.  Jef Jaxon...because...do you realize just how many Jeff Jackson's there are out there?

In my inbox, I discovered this from a student of mine some years back.  Heath Grant, who has gone on to dabble in teaching as well, sent this over and it really made my month.

His email began by describing a class he is currently taking to get his teaching credential and was asked to draft a letter to send to a influential person and that person was ....me.  Woot!  Here is his letter to me:

2/4/13

Mr. Jeff Jackson,

           

            Hi Jeff, I am writing this letter to express my appreciation to you for inspiring me in many ways.  You gave me the inspiration and confidence to succeed in whatever path I chose to pursue in art or in any facet of my life.  I have had many teachers some good and some very bad, but your classes always challenged me in ways that allowed me to do my best and excel in the content we were studying.  In many cases you challenged me in ways I didn't want to be challenged.  Your.... rambunctious personality and excitement made me love attending your class and gave me motivation to push myself.  I wanted to be the one that earned your praise because I knew it didn't come easy.

            I remember in my first class with you, we were doing a sketching assignment and I don't remember if I didn't finish the assignment or just did it poorly but when we had open book critiques with the class, you just wrote the word "DOOM"  in my book and handed it back.  This was totally light hearted but I still have that book and I love that page.  It made me want to impress you and work hard.  I appreciated your form of critiquing rather than the teacher you had, that would just staple McDonalds applications to your work. 

            When we worked on story boards you told us how time consuming and demanding these projects would be.  Be prepared to post your boards up around the room and then pitch them to the class.  Then we would critique the effectiveness of the flow of the boards and the boards individually, from design to camera angle to- you better have a good motivation for that damn camera move!  Then we would have to revise, revise, revise.  I don't think I ever worked harder in a class then in this one.  But I don't think that I ever had a class that I got more gratification out of either.  I also enjoyed you looking for that dumb dog in every assignment after I put him in the first one. 

            I never said it, but I appreciated how you seemed to take me under your wing at times and be more critical of me then with the others because you knew what I was capable of and the potential I had.  I am grateful that we can still call each other friends and make fun of each other when needed.   You are inspiring to me in how to be an effective teacher, though I would guess you might not think so.  Don't worry I'll leave out some of the expletives.  The excitement you bring, the demand for hard work and the respect you earn from your students, along with the respect and high expectations you have for them makes me excited to teach.  Thanks for all you did and for all the memories. 

Heath

Here's Heath pitching away with his 'dumb dog' hidden in those boards somewhere.  Photo is from here.

So, thank a teacher!  They/we really don't do it for the glory but every now and then it fills our hearts with pride and warmth to see our students spread their wings and step out of the 'nest' to fly off and do great things.  And then after that good feeling goes away and we have to grade...we go back to despising you guys (wink).  Thanks for stopping by!

Anatomy: Find the parts you know...

 

Recently, a student sent me this image of a common European mole skull (Talpa Europaea) asking how to find the eye socket on this little creature.  At first glance, it is indeed difficult to find because the eye is not where you expect it to be.  This mole, like most, spends nearly all of its time underground digging its way toward even smaller critters to eat.  It's need for sight is almost unnecessary and the eyes have become nearly vestigial as the skull, over time, has evolved to enhance other, more necessary features; smell and strong, crushing jaws, not to mention, very large forepaws for digging (not shown). 

Luckily, this animal is a mammal and with a little thought; you can locate landmarks in the bone structure that are comparable to anatomy we know well.  I have pointed out recognizable bone masses below.  The Zygomatic region (Zygomatic Process, Zygomatic Bone, and Zygomatic Arch all surround the Orbital (Eye) Socket and that tiny triangular shape is the home of the animal's eye.

 

Knowing this, we can now add the features.  This mole has a relatively large nasal opening, making its nose a big shape as it angles up off the snout.  Its large flat Mandible allows for a thick masseter  (jaw muscle) and the sloping arch of the epicranius allows for a very strong temporalis.  I have sketched in the head of this animal of the skull and below you can see the sketch more clearly.

 

 This was fun, and I'm glad I was given the chance to help out.  Remember folks, comparative anatomy: if you can find it on your skull/skeleton, you can probably find something similar on another animal as well even through variation.  Thanks for stopping by.

BTW, above is a super fantastic pose sheet for Mr.Mole from Disney's Wind in the Willows. They took some liberties here, but I love this character.

Star Wars Valentine's/ Brave Valentine's Oh My!

Happy Valentine's Day!  This year, once again, I made my daughter's valentine's cards (my son only wanted store bought), she wanted characters from Pixar's Brave and I figured as long as I was going to the trouble, I'd do up some Star Wars valentine's as well -complete with duckface Yoda.  So here they are large enough for you to print your own with preliminary sketches included.  It was a treat to take such a fun diversion and Daughter is happy with them too.  Let me know what you think, enjoy!  Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

Christmas 1979 - 2012

Back in the day.

Quick Clean Up of Drawings

This is in no way intended to be a tutorial because there are much better ones out there with regards to cleaning up a crappy scan or worse, a bad camera phone photo of one of your drawings.  This is more like a "Holy crap! Your Mom/Significant Other/Boss/Police will be over to your crib in five minutes and you have to clean/hide/burn/flush/throw out window all the junk to look attractive or normal or innocent!" kind of post about cleaning up your drawings for that final model sheet project that is due that your instructor told you to make look clean.
First, find a scanner and scan your drawings.  For those of you that thought it would be good idea to use your camera phone, hand held, to take a photo of your work, on your kitchen table under one light - probably fluorescent - or on your carpet in the living room next to your cat or your shoes...here is what needs to be asked....WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!  Are you just trying to ruin your life, or worse, MINE? Why not go and slam the car door on your fingers?  At the very least it would be faster and probably less painful to fix. Ahem. If, for some reason, you lost your mind for a moment and did intend take a photo of your drawing with your camera phone, at least lay it flat and get two lights of the same wattage and place them on either side of your work and find something to steady your hand so you at least simulate a camera stand.

Anyway, what's a good way to clean up all of the shadows and junk around your drawings if you do shoot them with your camera phone in manner mentioned above?

Let's start with the worst; a camera phone photo of a drawing as shot hand held on the kitchen table at 3:00 in the morning with just the kitchen light on.  Result is below.  Now, you could just turn this in because you are too busy to care, but your instructor is probably too busy to give you good grade if you force him/her to even look at this atrocity.

It's a revolting yellow color, there are shadows all over the place, it's a revolting yellow color, it's out of focus, and it's a revolting yellow color. Go have a look at the above, I'll wait.

REVOLTING!! YELLOW!! COLOR!!

Because this is for a model sheet project and color isn't really a factor, first thing to do is get rid of the color.
Now, you know this, in PS (I even have used a really old version of CS5-gasp!) open your file and click Image -Grayscale and click Okay.

 

You will now have the below.  Granted, it still looks terrible but at least that revolting yellow color is gone. Okay let's take away this gray.

Click Image - Adjustments - Levels (or hot key it) to get the Image adjustment window.

The sliders denote black, middle gray and white. Adjust each to get rid of as much shadow as possible without blowing out your drawing.  I tend to favor the gray slider.

This is what I ended up with.  Keep in mind that this is a quick fix in lieu of time, you can set up mask layers and all of that jazz, but we just want to get this out of the way so you can play another 15 hours of Skyrim.

To speed things along I click on the marque tool and select a large portion outside the drawing to delete...

and again on the other side...

That's less distracting.  Move on, the clock is ticking. 

Now, quickly erase out some of the extra junk on the outside you can/will erase later as a finishing touch.  We are about 4-6 minutes into the process.  Now, click on Filter - Sharpen - Unsharp Mask. I like this because you get a slider window and have a little more control over what you can sharpen rather than other options.

Use the sliders to bring the image more in focus.  Doing so will take away information so be sure you don't over do it and your image begins to pixelate.  But note how much more clear the image below is as compared to the above.

At this point, I want to lighten the gray stuff in the drawing itself so I marque parts, in this case, the legs and go back to Levels and use the sliders again.  Selection parts allows you to alter some things without losing information in other areas. The shoulder and head are going to be a little tricky as the shoulder is going really dark but the hand and parts of the head are washing or blowing out as a whole.  I selected the arm and cane and boost the levels accordingly.

 

Same with the legs as shown below.

 

The head/face and arm is really being a pain here so I select the whole group and go back to Unsharp Mask and after a little adjustment, I get it to a manageable value and sharpness.

Finally I erase out a little more of the spots and end up with the below.  A perfectly acceptable 'rough' drawing without camera shadows and other filth, the whole process took under ten minutes.  I understand many of you will object to the processes described in this quick demonstration but the steps mentioned above will get you a good, readable rough drawing suitable for use in project such as this where you need to show your rough keys.

Hope that helps, have fun drawing and uh...shooting stuff with your camera phone and PLEASE don't slam your fingers in your car door.

Gesture Stays The Same!

Sitting in class, discussing with students their characters' turnarounds.  I am amazed that so many of them have changed the dynamic poses they came up with because, "the pose was too hard to draw".  The gesture is the soul of the drawing!  Everything else; construction, anatomy and technique just get added to or built off the gesture. One word: Blah! If you redraw the pose into something "easier", you are actually dulling it down, like striping out the melody of a song, the flavor out of a sauce, or the personality out of a good friend.  A new "less complicated" version is just noise, tasteless glop or detestably uninteresting.  There is way too much of this watering down going on now-a-days so the challenge is to CHALLENGE yourself by coming up with gestures that are not only lively but but push the essence of the pose you are trying to draw. Doing so will push the limits of drawing ability as well. If the character/figure you are hoping to convey has a solid gesture, The specific shapes you use in construction should "fit" the gesture.  If the character's legs are very long, then those leg cylinders should be drawn long, but still reflect the gesture they are trying to express.  There may be a need to draw a new line or elongate the gesture but this new "complimentary" gesture line needs to be at the same angle(s) and expressiveness as the original gesture.  Think of starting any pose a character who has unusual proportions by drawing the gesture of 'typical' human.  Do not get caught up in the length of the legs or thickness of the chest etc.  Just draw an expressive gesture and add the components of construction to it.  If it helps, draw the pose using standard human expression and proportions first to give you an idea of what the pose looks like before you try to draw the character's actual proportions. This will free you from over-thinking your character's pose.  After drawing some poses of your character this way, you will get to the point where you can draw out your character with good gestures according to to its unique proportions.  Here is a quick GCA breakdown in three steps.  A lot of compression is happening in the abdominals as well as a twist through to the shoulders.

 I have taken three characters from my students (I don't really remember how they look but made some estimates) one has very long limbs -the character not the student-, one is very thick through the neck with long ears and the last is um, well fed. I used the same gesture (shown in red) from the above drawing to pose each one.

In each case I have had to 'push' the construction off the original gesture but those shapes follow the original gesture.  You can add just any constructed form on an expressive gesture, don't cheapen the work you do because it's hard to draw.  As always, you can click on the images for a larger version. Now go draw difficult poses, thanks for stopping by.

Interview'd AGAIN.

I know what you're thinking, "Gee-ood, did they run out of interesting people?!"  Apparently, yes. Anyway this is a rough draft from Rochelle Beckel, journalism student at SJSU, who came into my class looking to interview an instructor who could loose his/her job if Prop 30 doesn't pass. 
She interviewed a group of my students and then myself.  Here it is, thanks to Rochelle for giving premission to post this.

Rochelle Beckel

Journalism 132C
9/19/12

Prop 30 Personality Profile on Jeffrey Jackson

The minute I walk into Jeffrey Jackson’s animation/illustration fundamentals class and hear him talk, I am instantly at ease.
“It’s Cooooourtney!” Jackson announces dramatically as Courtney Granner, one of his colleagues, introduces me to the class and explains that I will be sitting in on the class and interviewing some of the students about Jackson.

It doesn’t take more than 30 seconds of sitting in the back of the full classroom to realize that Jackson is far from the stereotypical intimidating, impossible to relate to, dull college lecturer that so many students envision their lecturers to be upon beginning their journey into college classes.

“He’s really funny and he jokes around all the time, and he makes learning things seem really simple and there’s not much pressure,” says Olivia Keller, a sophomore animation/illustration major.

After explaining that without Prop 30 passing, Jackson’s career as a lecturer at SJSU would likely be at risk, several students expressed their concern and adamancy that Jackson in no way deserved such a consequence.

“It’s not fair because he does just as much work, if not more, than the other professors here and in other departments,” Keller said. “He stays here for a long time, he has office hours here, he spends more time individually with each student because class sizes are smaller. He really goes to your personal needs, you know if you have personal questions, it’s a lot easier for us to get in contact with him.”

Keller isn’t Jackson’s only student who appreciates his informal, relaxed attitude toward the class. “He’s very down to Earth and he makes you feel comfortable, like no matter what you say you can’t be wrong,” adds Emily Wheeler, a sophomore animation/illustrator major. “He always tells us it’s your own interpretation, everyone has their own interpretation. The school would be losing a really good teacher, a really good teacher. He founded the Shrunken Head Man Club and I mean that’s what this whole program is based off of, that’s how we’ve grown as a major and stuff.”

            The Shrunken Head Man Club started out as a small organization with about 15 members that even gave out free gum to encourage people to join. Now, it has grown to hold 570 members and fills up an entire lecture room in Washington Square Hall. The club discusses upcoming events relating to their field, has guest speakers give presentations, and holds conversations among themselves regarding the myriad of issues they all have to face as students of the art department such as unit caps. Jackson was chosen to be president of the club and is very proud to be known as one of its founding members.

“It’s like this huge family,” Jackson explains. “It’s competition, but it’s friendly competition. Nobody’s coming in to stab you in the back or anything like that.”

Jackson has been a part time lecturer at SJSU for the animation and illustration program since spring 2011, something that has been a longtime dream of his because for him, it meant coming back to teach at his alma mater. A member of SJSU’s 1997 graduating class, he explains one of the ways his experience with college classes and professors influenced his teaching style, but not in the way you might not think.

“I know that there were classes I took at San Jose State where it was like ‘This is how you do it, do what I’m telling you to do and do it my way,’” Jackson explains. “So I try and incorporate some fun, I try and let the students laugh and enjoy themselves but at the same time kind of figure out for themselves what’s working and try and give them a set of different ideas to bounce off of.”

That laid back, relaxed environment that Jackson naturally promotes is evident in the students’ responses to the kind of class he leads every week and a key aspect of why they are so drawn to his lessons and teaching style. Even his office hours are informal; instead of holding them in an actual office, he chooses to have them right in his classroom after the class session ends to help ease the anxiety that some students may have before approaching a teacher for some one on one assistance.

            “The environment he provides, you learn something but it’s very relaxed so you don’t feel intimidated to ask questions,” says Josh Gong, a sophomore majoring in animation/illustration. “You’re always going to have a fun time, but while learning something. He always gets involved with the students, he helps you personally if you just ask him questions and he’ll do the best he can to help you out, and most of the time he’s very helpful.”

“He’s just really funny and really upbeat and he always keeps you involved with the class, you don’t really get lost in it,” adds Saul Uribe, a sophomore animation/illustration major. “You’re always interested in what he’s saying because he keeps the jokes coming and all that. Even though he’s funny and cracks jokes all the time, when he gets to the actual teaching he’s very serious, he gets into it then he explains and there’s no jokes in there, then he goes back to going funny again.”

            Jackson’s teaching experience isn’t limited to just SJSU—he has taught classes at several schools in the past but is currently on his 13^th year teaching at Cogswell Polytechnical College in Sunnyvale in addition to lecturing part time at SJSU. Cogswell is where his teaching career took off after starting out as a supervising animator for the school’s internship program. However, even after the internship program ended he continued to work on animation there with students. He had no idea that eventually, the school’s dean would be asking him if he would be interested in working as an animation teacher for the school.

“It turned out to be like ‘Well in three days, classes start so make sure you sign right here!’” Jackson recalls. “So then I signed, and I thought ‘Ok, well it will be good just for a semester,’ and then after that I was like ‘Wow this is great, I love this’ and so here I am.”

He explains that he believes that what makes a great teacher is someone who really knows the subject that they’re teaching, but at the same time understands the student mind and can explain their subject’s material in a manner that the student can genuinely comprehend.

“I really like being able to see students learning, I think that’s really cool,” says Jackson. “If I can get up in front of an audience of students and they can actually take away some crazy thing that I’ve said and turn it into something they can use as a tool, I think that’s the finest feeling.”

Courtney Granner, a professor of the animation/illustration department and colleague of Jackson, agrees with Jackson’s students that Jackson is an irreplaceable member of the art department community. “I think he understands our culture and how we communicate with our students, and I think he understands that it takes an amazing amount of dedication for the students to succeed. He knows that everyone is an adult and he gives them that respect, but manages to keep things light and lively at the same time,” Granner says. “Jeff’s an outstanding personality, he’s a real colleague, he stepped right in and was able to do the right thing right off the bat. He knows, and he’s a good fit for us.”

There you have it.   So, two things:  DON'T Call me Jeffrey even if you do see it in print and vote YES on prop 30.  Thanks again to Rochelle for interviewing me.