Eric Grant, a senior graphic design student, was one of the many artworks chosen by our Templar staff as an example of how the many opportunities at Temple have facilitated the growth of his artistic journey. Eric, in one of his graphic design classes, was given the prompt to make a Federal Duck Stamp with his own twist on the prompt that makes it unique to himself.
He spoke fondly on how there were many times he thought that he would not be able to execute his vision on taking a Red Duck and transforming it into the character Red Hood from the DC Comics that he knows and loves. This included a mixture of styles to get the vision that he had envisioned within his head.
“It was done mostly in digital watercolor, which I considered a breakthrough in my approach to digital art, since I’ve been trying to figure it out during this project,” said Grant. “I was more of a traditional paper and pencil, paper and pen.”
The change from paper to digital did cause a learning curve at first with getting used to the change in brush strokes and the process of creating art. He was able to combine the traditional watercolor style of the duck stamps with the flair of the DC comics, even when he had doubts that the project would turn out well.
“Art has been the thing that I ask myself if I did make the right decision,” Grant said. “But now I can see that I can go from struggling to create concepts to having full concepts from thumbnail to finish.”
The professors at Tyler School of Art and Architecture’s main goals in teaching their students are to push them to their full potential so that they can create the ideas in their mind with the confidence and courage to make their mark in the world. They too can then create their own concepts to share what they see in the world.