Annette the Elizabeth

“In "no-nonsense nurturing," directions are often scripted in advance, and praise is kept to a minimum.”

The first illustration I did for NPR as a freelancer not an intern. Article

"Veterans groups, like the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, are struggling to recruit and engage younger veterans who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars." Article

Increasingly more kindergartens are treating their children more like scholars than five year olds, including cutting out naps.

This one ended up going unpublished because the story changed significantly but it’s still one of my favorites.

“I'm 22, And I Can't Wait To Be An Old Lady”

One of my favorite illustrations from my time as an NPR intern. The article is all about how amazing older women are because they’ve seen and done it all, and we young ones are still fumbling around. I’m glad our grandmas aunties are increasingly being appreciated for how great they really are.

I won’t post every single illustration I made for NPR while interning. But I’ll share this and a few of my favorites. It was definitely a different experience being in the same space as the editors I was making illustrators for, as opposed to email correspondence. But it was fun and I learned a lot, in addition to improving my coding skills. I’m glad I’ll get to freelance for NPR afterwards. 

I finished these lines a while ago, did some experimenting with coloring, finally came to solution I liked, and then Photoshop crashed before I saved the final colors. So after a few weeks of pretending this illustration never existed, I finally redid the colors and actually improved some of the lines. So the piece is all the better for it.

I've been working on this piece on and off for a few months (it’s been a busy summer after graduation) and finally did 85% of the work in the past two days.

The periodical cicadas Magicicadas evolved to emerge from the ground every 13 or 17 years (depending on the breed) to dodge the shorter and typically divisible life cycles of their predators (ie. 5 and 10 year life spans.) 

I know VCUarts’ Graphic Design program is very experimental and fine artsy, less commercially focused. Not that that’s a bad thing. Design is in fact largely about experimentation, play and concept. But as a former Communication Arts major, that’s about all I know. I don’t know much about surrounding schools either, especially since I’m not from ‘round these parts.

I would however suggest you research design schools in South Carolina to see if there would be a significant difference for you between those and VCU. Enough of a difference to justify paying out of state tuition, which is 3x what in state students pay. 

Hello anon, I’ll go into a few things but if you want a more in depth response, feel free to email me and we can chat. It’s hard to do an umbrella summary of art school, but specific question would be easier.

 First thing, unless you’re rich and don’t mind being in school for a while, double majoring in ComArts and GDES (Graphic Design) is a no go. The programs were once one major years ago, but they’ve since been split, and almost none of the coursework is the same. You’d be here for seven years probably. My suggestion would be ComArts since it’s the most rounded and has a lot of options if you know what you’re after. Illustration, design, comics, 3d and game art, etc. GDES if your heart is absolutely set in just design. But you should ask a GDES major too.

As for ComArts, the workload is heavy, but not as heavy as it will be if you’re doing it right. If you go through the program without identifying what you want to do, at least narrowing it down to a field, you’ll end putting in a whole lot of work for not a lot of results. This major is more effective for those who figure out what commercial arts field(s) they want to go into, gear their classwork towards that field, form relationships with professors with experience in that field, and do a lot of extra curricular work and research about that field. There will be a lot of opportunities to learn and connect with people who can help you out, but if you don’t know what it is you want to do after college, you’ll end up just going to class and completing assignments and it won’t mean anything because it doesn’t build toward your career goal. So my suggestion is do some serious experimentation and research in your first 1-2 years of college, and in the last 2-4, get on your grind and do the dang thing. Even if you graduate without a sure fire plan of what’s next, your long term goals and confidence from knowing your shit will carry you through. That got a little sappy, but yeah.