Rebecca Heavner is the co‐author of the illustration emphasis area in the College of Art & Media where she teaches illustration and design. Her 25+ year illustration career includes work in advertising, design, institutional and publication markets with recognition from American Illustration, The Society of Illustrators, American Institute of Graphic Arts, and others. Rebecca is a contributing author to the book, A Companion to Illustration: Art and Theory, Chapter 2: Conceptual Illustration: Framework and Methodologies published by Wiley Blackwell in 2019.
Rebecca has worked the office of Michael Vergason, Landscape Architects in Alexandria, Virginia, first as an intern and later with Chroma Design, in Boulder, Colorado. While teaching illustration, Rebecca has collaborated on interactive installation art, illustration, and design projects. Rebecca’s current studio practice is informed by her long-time illustration career and landscape architecture. Rebecca has a research interest in illustration and design, and experiments with illustration media in her studio. Her critical scholarly writing on illustration, design, and landscape focuses on representation and media. Rebecca is currently researching and writing a paper, “Expanded Bauhaus Ideologies and the Future of 2D Design Principles,” for a paper for Design Communication Association conference on “FORGETTING / REMEMBERING: Design Communication for Experimental Traditions.”
Education, Licensure & Certifications
University of Colorado Denver
MLA; Landscape Architecture
Virginia Commonwealth University
BFA; Communication Arts and Design, Illustration emphasis
Courses
Fostering Creativity
Drawing 1
Illustration I: Image Making
Illustration II: Digital Media
Illustration III: Investigative Methods, Life Drawing
Illustration IV: Thesis Development
Design Studio I, Two Dimensional Design
Typography Studio
Concepts in Illustration
Illustration BFA Thesis
Anatomy for the Artist
The Business of Art
Social Engagement by Design
The Graphic Novel Workshop
Spatial Draw for Illustrators
Topics in Studio Art
Lynx camp-Zines
Publications and Presentations
Heavner, R. L. (2019). A Companion to Illustration. Wiley Blackwell Companions to Art History, 666. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/doi/book/10.1002/9781119185574 Rebecca Heavner, M.L.A instructor and author, “The Theory, Character and Making of Imagery, Chapter 2: Conceptual Illustration: Framework and Methodologies,” A Companion to Illustration.vol. 15., edited by Alan Male, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 2019., pp.47-58
Alan Male, editor writes, "A contemporary synthesis of the philosophical, theoretical and practical methodologies of illustration and its future development. Illustration is contextualized visual communication; its purpose is to serve society by influencing the many aspects of its cultural infrastructure; it dispenses knowledge and education, it commentates and delivers journalistic opinion, it persuades, advertises and promotes, it entertains and provides for all forms of narrative fiction. A Companion to Illustration explores the definition of illustration through cognition and research and its impact on culture. It explores illustration’s boundaries and its archetypal distinction, the inflected forms of its parameters, its professional, contextual, educational and creative applications. This unique reference volume offers insights into the expanding global intellectual conversation on illustration through a compendium of readings by an international roster of scholars, academics and practitioners of illustration and visual communication.
