Leela Corman is a painter, educator, illustrator and graphic novel creator. She creates entirely hand-painted comics and graphic novels in watercolor, gouache and acrylics and works primarily with Polish-Jewish history and life, in both her fiction and nonfiction comics, as well as women’s history, 20th-century New York history, trauma, loss and (occasionally) music. She is currently finishing the second book in her New York trilogy Victory Parade, a graphic novel about women working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard during the Second World War, a Jewish refugee turned amateur women’s wrestling champ, and the astral plane over Buchenwald.
Corman’s short-form comics have appeared in The Believer Magazine, Tablet Magazine, Nautilus and The Nib. She has worked as an illustrator for 20 years, creating editorial illustrations for The New York Times, NYPress, BUST Magazine, books on subjects ranging from urban gardening to fashion history, album art for The Mountain Goats, and tour poster art for Neko Case, Thalia Zedek Band and Live Skull. She is a founding instructor at Sequential Artists Workshop, a freestanding school for comics and graphic novels based in Gainesville, FL. Past books include the graphic novel Unterzakhn (Schocken-Pantheon, 2012) and the short comics collection We All Wish for Deadly Force (Retrofit/Big Plant, 2016).
Her teaching philosophy centers the direct physical experience of making art by hand with unpredictable physical materials and the use of storytelling practices to arrive at powerful images. It is in practice, rather than theory, that we find ourselves as artists. She is most interested in, as the artist William Kentridge says, “understanding the world as process rather than as fact.” Her approach is grounded in a broad view of art history and cultural production as applied to illustration and comics.
At their very core, all books convey a sequence of ideas, but the execution varies widely from one volume to another. In this course, juniors and seniors strive to extend this concept outside of traditional book parameters to achieve their own creative interpretation. Working from their own themes, students mold an innovative presentation of images and concepts in two dimensions or three, using concrete depictions or abstract forms in the construction of their own unique artist's book. Assignments include the study of different folds, narrative problems, poetic counting, lost and found, and a free project of the student's choice. Students are encouraged to continue their own media that might include painting, construction, printmaking, etc.
Open to Junior or Senior Illustration Students.
Elective
ILLUS 2000-07 - VISUAL THINKING
LevelUndergraduate
UnitIllustration
Subject Illustration
Period Fall 2023
Credits 3
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
ILLUS 2000-07
VISUAL THINKING
LevelUndergraduate
UnitIllustration
Subject Illustration
PeriodFall 2023
Credits3
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2023-09-06 to 2023-12-13
Times: M | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Leela CormanLocation(s): Illustration Studies Building, Room 412Enrolled / Capacity: 15Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Illustration
Spring 2024 Courses
ILLUS 605G-01 - GRADUATE ILLUSTRATION STUDIO IV: THESIS
As a culmination of the MFA program, this intensive studio challenges students to design and craft a significant, topically-focused body of work. Although students may choose creative formats and media according to their own interests, they must publish thesis work produced in class. Publication through digital platforms (podcasts, websites, apps, etc.) will be coordinated with analog forms when possible and appropriate to the project. Together with the research and writing produced in ILLUS 606G Paradigms and Contexts: Publishing the Thesis and Beyond, a comprehensive body of work and a written thesis document will be produced.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 - $1,500.00
Open to Graduate Illustration Students.
Major Requirement | MFA Illustration
ILLUS 3943-01 - THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
LevelUndergraduate
UnitIllustration
Subject Illustration
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
ILLUS 3943-01
THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
LevelUndergraduate
UnitIllustration
Subject Illustration
PeriodSpring 2024
Credits3
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Times: T | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Leela CormanLocation(s): Weybosset St Studios, Room 307Enrolled / Capacity: 15Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is a comics writing and artmaking workshop with an emphasis on professional production finishing techniques, culminating in materials for pitching a comic project or graphic novel. Assignments will introduce students to both traditional methods (thumbnailing, inking) and state of the art technical processes (digital coloring, art preparation, file format and delivery, and processing for press quality publication). Students will develop their visual storytelling abilities by creating comics from existing scripts—exploring various literary genres, among which sci-fi, mystery or non-fiction—as well as original stories.
