Coming to the Kansas City Auto Show!

Three Illustration students from the Kansas City Art Institute, in cooperation with the Kansas City Auto Show and the Art of the Car Concours, are wrapping three BMW MINIs with original artwork for display at this year's Kansas City Auto Show. The program is coordinated through KCAI's Sponsored Studio program where students find creative solutions for local businesses. KCAI's Illustration students were asked to create unique designs that could be applied to cars. Representatives from the KC Auto Show, BMW, and Art of the Car Concours selected the top three designs for display at the Auto Show, held March 2-6, 2016 at Bartle Hall.

The three senior Illustration students whose work was selected for the program include Alison Polston from O'Fallon, MO; Emily Woodson from Pensacola, FL and Twodee Weaver from Austin, TX. 

Illustration/concept by Alison Polston

Illustration/concept by Emily Woodson

Illustration/concept by Twodee Weaver

The public will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite design while attending the Auto Show. The Automobile Dealers of Greater Kansas City Charitable Foundation will award scholarships to the three students based on public vote. The car with the top votes will receive $2000, second place will receive $1000 and third place will receive $750. The three final designs were culled from 13 student entries.

Additional partners in this project include Baron MINI, who provided the three Mini Coopers and Wrap It Up! Vehicle Wraps in Shawnee, KS.

BiG CONGRATS to Alison, Emily and Twodee!

Big thanks JooHee!

This October, we were lucky enough to have super-talented JooHee Yoon join us for a day as a visiting artist to our department. 

Visiting Artist JooHee Yoon with Assistant Professor David Terrill

Needless to say, we were all very excited to have JooHee join us for a day. Her fun, colorful, printmaking-inspired work is something that many of us have admired for some time. Her recently released books, Beastly Verse and The Tiger Who Would Be King, both published by Enchanted Lion Books, have created quite a buzz, in addition to her multifaceted editorial work.

JooHee surprised our students by giving them each a print from her recent book, Beastly Verse -- it was a bit of a stampede as students went up to claim their print! She also brought a stack of her recent picture books to sell. I think she sold every last one!

What a wonderful surprise!

At the end of the day, we all get together for a Q&A session with our visiting artist. This is a chance for the students to ask JooHee all sorts of questions. The students had a lot of great questions and JooHee provided some wonderful insight.

The Q&A discussion begins!

Every visiting artist that comes to KCAI Illustration gives our students a project. All the students within every level in the department participate and create a piece for the project; they usually have about a week to complete it. For her project, JooHee challenged the students to create an 18x24 inch travel poster to a place that could be real or imagined. As an instructor, I always love to see what the students come up with and once again, I was amazed. There were some wonderful pieces!!

The final step for our visiting artist is for them to select what they consider to be the top 25-30 solutions for the project. Out of those 25-30 pieces, they select their Top 3 solutions. The students whose work is selected as one of the Top 3 have the opportunity to go to dinner with the visiting artist! Congrats to the Top 3 picks senior Taylor Fourt, junior Ethan Tucker and sophomore Gabrielle Brandini!

Taylor Fourt

Ethan Tucker

Gabrielle Brandini

Dinner with JooHee at Cafe Trio, Kansas City, MO. Also present Assistant Professor David Terrill, Assistant Professor John Ferry, Instructor Hector Casanova, Instructor Kyle Strahm and Assistant Professor Maura Cluthe (taking the picture!). What a fun night!

There were so many strong solutions to this project, that JooHee had a hard time narrowing it down to these final three. So, she chose 3 Honorable Mentions as well. Congrats to senior Alison Polston, senior Karolina Akimov and sophomore Max Peake! 

Alison Polston

Karolina Akimov

Max Peake

Thanks again, JooHee, for taking time out of your busy schedule to stop by and visit with us!

ILLUSTRATION NOW 2014

Once again, we're nearing the end of the fall semester which means that we're close to our end of the semester show. ILLUSTRATION NOW 2014 opens this Friday night, December 5, and we couldn't be more excited! Between the ILLUSTRATION NOW show and The Harvest Internship Event and all the work the students are finishing up before the winter break, the studios are buzzing!

Since the exhibition space within our department is somewhat small, we decided to keep this show simple and manageable. This year 34 students (out of 96) were selected by full-time faculty and invited to submit up to 2 pieces for consideration in the show. Once all the pieces were submitted, one piece per student was chosen. 

Here's a little preview of some of the work that will be in the show. Check it out!

Taylor Fourt

RT Smith

Nathan Hall

Nicholette Haigler

Emily Stout

JC Franco

Kristopher Martin

Wesley Derstine

Johannah Miller

Alison Polston

Coleman Stampley

Kendall Quack

Tobias Rose

Twodee Weaver

Thanks for checking out the work! Join us this Friday night at 324 East 43rd Street from 5-8 pm. Be sure to stop by the other departments on campus for the 2014 End of Semester shows!