Ever wonder what up-and-coming artists are slowly paving their way at SCAD? While SCAD may be a small school, and we have four campuses, and its not always easy to find everyone’s artwork. Behance is a great website to find student work, and that’s where third-year SCAD Savannah student Rachel Well’s sequential art was discovered. Rachel is set to graduate in Spring 2017. I was able to catch up with her and ask her a few questions about how SCAD has helped shape her path as an artist.
Image courtesy of Rachel Wells.
Kara Robson: Why did you come to choose to study at SCAD?
Rachel Wells: Well, I remember starting to consider SCAD after noticing a lot of amazing animation and illustrations created by SCAD students and alumni and decided it was definitely a school I should consider. Eventually it came to a toss-up between SCAD and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (which is much closer to home for me); they seemed equally great and offered me similar financial aid packages. However, when I finally made the trek down south and visited SCAD Savannah my mind was set. It was just so beautiful and had a real feel-good vibe; I somehow knew that I would be really happy here and thank god I was right!
Illustration courtesy of Rachel Wells.
KR: What skills has SCAD given you so far that have really helped improve you as a student and artist?RW: The list is endless. Every step of the way has been a learning experience for me and I’ve improved exponentially since starting out. Probably the most important skills I’ve built up at SCAD are self discipline and time management. You really can’t survive classes here without those skills and I know they’ll be indispensable once I’m out bumbling around in the professional world.
Illustration courtesy of Rachel Wells.
KR: What are you looking forward to most after graduating from SCAD?
RW: Paying back my loans of course! No but really, I’m looking forward to traveling and branching out; being a full-time student doesn’t really allow me the time or money to do much of that. I’m also looking forward to having the time and energy to build up my freelance career. I do want to start out working for a game development or animation studio, but eventually I’d like to go fully freelance and really live my dream: hole myself up in the house and draw all day!
Illustration courtesy of Rachel Wells.
KR: Which art classes do you believe have helped you improve most as an artist?
RW: It’s hard to say; all of my sequential art classes have pushed my abilities and helped me improve in some way. One that I think helped me a lot is Drawing for Sequential Art, which is one part figure drawing and one part perspective drawing. You’re forced to draw a LOT in this class, and as every art student comes to know eventually, doing something a lot makes you better at it. Another class that helped me is Environments, Props and Structures, which teaches you how to draw (you guessed it) environments and props. It really pushes your knowledge of perspective and teaches you techniques to make your drawings more believable, with or without reference.
Illustration courtesy of Rachel Wells.
KR: Lastly, are there any projects that you do outside of class/not specifically for SCAD?
RW: Does a part-time job count? I work as a writer for SCAD creative services. I help write the SCAD weekly newsletter, master calendar entries for scad.edu (certain print items like posters and similar items). It doesn’t have a lot to do with sequential art, but I like it and I feel it’s given me good experience working in a creative, deadline-driven environment.
Want to see more of Rachel work? You can find more of her amazing art on Behance.