In my first lecture I'll give an introduction and class overview that will put you squarely on the path to engage your audience through the design of compelling environments. I'll take you through the entire design and development process and show you how art departments and individual artists can create extraordinary places that thrill their audience.

As a concept artist, you'll be required to find artistry and clarity within challenging and complicated subject matter. Whether it's sophisticated architecture, busy foliage or a landscape filled with dozens of characters, one of your core skills must be the ability to effectively deal with complexity. In this lesson I'll show how designing and structuring the values of light and dark can be your best and most potent solution to complexity challenges.

The design of shape and line can create a surprisingly rich visual language that your audience will inherently understand. In this lesson I'll show you how to employ shape and line to give a sense of emotional character and story to landscape, architecture and props.

From deep canvas action to enclosed quiet moments, the design of space can give the audience a powerful sense of emotion and storytelling. In lesson 4 we'll explore the design of space to create a potent emotional experience for the audience.

In this demonstration I'll apply the concepts taught in the previous lessons in a series of demonstrations to show how value, shape language and space can work together effectively. I'll also review how the addition of color and light will enhance the subject.

Architecture can be much more than a construction, it can be designed to show the character and history of the people who live there. In this lesson I'll show you how the principles of shape language and space design apply to architecture. You'll learn how to give architecture an emotional characterization as well as a sense of history and a strong presence within a story.

Now that we've covered the critical big picture elements of visual communication it's time to discuss the nuances. Modelling, set dressing and texturing can give a location a compelling believability that will draw in the audience and bring your work to life.

For this lesson I'll demonstrate the staging of space, landscape and architecture to create illustrations that best convey the mood, story and history of the environment.

Success as an artist requires us to be able to emotionally connect with our audience in a way that gives them an experience that they value. We can learn to design a variety of moments such as an action packed conflict, a scene of potent drama or a voyage of discovery. My final lecture will combine principles from all the previous weeks as I show you how to use the design of environment and theatrical staging to create presentation concept art that will put you on the map.