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Thursday, 14 August 2014
Wednesday, 13 August 2014
Apologies and Sadness
First of all apologies
I want to apologies how quiet I've been in the last few months. It all got a bit mental really.
I had a lot on my plate, and I had to prioritise my time, which meant iAnimate came first.
However...I've decided to take a block break from iAnimate, meaning I'll start Workshop 4 in their winter term in January (as who wants to go outside in January!?). Which gives me roughly 4-5 months of playtime, hurrah! Although, for the first few days, I've felt like a bit of a lost cause. Not knowing how to embrace the silence that is a late summers evening. Fear not, of course, I've come up with a horrible amount of weird and wacky things to keep me occupied, and I will try and exhibit my doings up here for you to keep an eye on me.
Planning achievements for the next 4-5 months has been tricky, because right this second it feels slightly overwhelming. Are you as addicted to to-do lists as me?! Please tell me, so I don't feel so alone.
So my main aims are:
- To be update my iAnimate page, with all the work I've produced up until now, as it's looking a little skeletal.
- explore some creative crafty arty projects, wire sculpture, more drawing, improv class, making things and ideas!
- finish the fancy animatic I've been working on for Cat and Moth, and get the site up and running so I can show you guys what's in the works
- Go outside and explore, take photos, get texture rubbings, be a kid
- Spend lots of time with my wonderful fella, who's been putting up with having an animating robot as a girlfriend for the past 8 months
- Probably some kind of updated showreel would probably be good too!
So yeah, a few biggy's, but all these things are fun, so that's grand! Can't wait to inundate you with exploration and creativity. It's all about keeping inspired right?
Now for sadness
Robin Williams left our planet yesterday, but only in a physical form. I've never been pushed to tears at a celebrity death, but this one got me. As my friend pointed out, for our generation he was such a big part of our childhood, we almost felt like we knew him. But I don't think we will ever truly know how he felt. Depression is an awful killer, and awareness of this illness needs to be much much bigger. I hear people saying he was selfish, why didn't he think of his family, everybody loved him, he was always laughing and looked happy, but it just doesn't work like that. Those are thoughts of a logical person unaffected and outside of depression, but within it, it's a whole other way of thinking, that an outsider could never really comprehend.
But, we are fortunate to have so many wonderful recordings and memories of his pure and utter genius, and I'm thankful, that despite his demons and depression, he shared his wonderful self with us all. He affected us all in some way, it's quite incredible for one being to have that impression. He's one of the few celebrities that I would actually like to have met, I wouldn't know what to ask first. What a superb person, and a tragic loss. I hope he knows how much everyone loved him, and I hope he is at peace now. If you're into stand up comedy, check out his stuff on Spotify, and check Inside the Actors Studio too, truly inspirational...now that's something to get inspired by!
On that note, I'm outta here x
I want to apologies how quiet I've been in the last few months. It all got a bit mental really.
I had a lot on my plate, and I had to prioritise my time, which meant iAnimate came first.
However...I've decided to take a block break from iAnimate, meaning I'll start Workshop 4 in their winter term in January (as who wants to go outside in January!?). Which gives me roughly 4-5 months of playtime, hurrah! Although, for the first few days, I've felt like a bit of a lost cause. Not knowing how to embrace the silence that is a late summers evening. Fear not, of course, I've come up with a horrible amount of weird and wacky things to keep me occupied, and I will try and exhibit my doings up here for you to keep an eye on me.
Planning achievements for the next 4-5 months has been tricky, because right this second it feels slightly overwhelming. Are you as addicted to to-do lists as me?! Please tell me, so I don't feel so alone.
So my main aims are:
- To be update my iAnimate page, with all the work I've produced up until now, as it's looking a little skeletal.
- explore some creative crafty arty projects, wire sculpture, more drawing, improv class, making things and ideas!
- finish the fancy animatic I've been working on for Cat and Moth, and get the site up and running so I can show you guys what's in the works
- Go outside and explore, take photos, get texture rubbings, be a kid
- Spend lots of time with my wonderful fella, who's been putting up with having an animating robot as a girlfriend for the past 8 months
- Probably some kind of updated showreel would probably be good too!
So yeah, a few biggy's, but all these things are fun, so that's grand! Can't wait to inundate you with exploration and creativity. It's all about keeping inspired right?
Now for sadness
Robin Williams left our planet yesterday, but only in a physical form. I've never been pushed to tears at a celebrity death, but this one got me. As my friend pointed out, for our generation he was such a big part of our childhood, we almost felt like we knew him. But I don't think we will ever truly know how he felt. Depression is an awful killer, and awareness of this illness needs to be much much bigger. I hear people saying he was selfish, why didn't he think of his family, everybody loved him, he was always laughing and looked happy, but it just doesn't work like that. Those are thoughts of a logical person unaffected and outside of depression, but within it, it's a whole other way of thinking, that an outsider could never really comprehend.
But, we are fortunate to have so many wonderful recordings and memories of his pure and utter genius, and I'm thankful, that despite his demons and depression, he shared his wonderful self with us all. He affected us all in some way, it's quite incredible for one being to have that impression. He's one of the few celebrities that I would actually like to have met, I wouldn't know what to ask first. What a superb person, and a tragic loss. I hope he knows how much everyone loved him, and I hope he is at peace now. If you're into stand up comedy, check out his stuff on Spotify, and check Inside the Actors Studio too, truly inspirational...now that's something to get inspired by!
On that note, I'm outta here x
Monday, 11 August 2014
Joe Weatherly Drawing Workshop
A log over-due post indeed.
About a month or so ago I attended Joe Weatherly's drawing workshop. It was fantastic, I can't describe the awesomeness, and how much I learnt during the 4 days. If you ever get the chance to attend his classes around the world, I highly recommend it.
The first day was spent in a lecture room, talking about anatomy and artistic styles. It was great to be introduced to a whole heap of new artists and going over some of the classics. Joe drew out how we should focus on structure underneath the animal. As once you know what is going on in the inside, you know why stuff is protruding on the outside. Structurally, it also helps a ton with animating animals. He advised us for our future to studies to spend allotted times on studying certain aspects of anatomy, i.e studying hands or paws for a month.
The second day was spent at the Natural History Museum (NHM), where we could spend time studying the structure of the animal from the inside, and not worrying about it wandering off :P. I find your mind's eye likes to summaries and soften your impression of construction, you start to assume you know how it works, mainly because, well, we have bodies! But drawing skeletons and really studying them illustrates how many things you miss, or assume are there or not there. These studies are purely that, for studying, the pieces from the full four days are there for learning, not to put on the wall. I also found out a lot of structural information that I hadn't really seen before, it was truly eye-opening.
The third and fourth day was spent at the London Zoo. We mainly studied the giraffes, as they reflected a lot of what we had studied at the previous destinations, i.e. horses and stags. We also got to spend a little time with one of the Tiger's, the Lions, and a bunch of reptiles.
As we walked around the Zoo spending a lot of time at each animal, I took a few photos for reference studies later on (see below) and we also got a lot of attention from the public, at both the Zoo and the NHM. It's funny how different people react to us studying, and the difference between very intrigued children and very naughty ones!
One of the things we were asked to practice and think about was to start to learn and remember how the animals looked, because as they are always moving, we were going to have to start drawing from our imagination and memory to get the poses we wanted want. It was a really interesting way to train ones brain.
Anyway, so I've collected a few of my sketch book pages and a few of the reference photographs I've taken, all posted below. If you want more information on Joe Weatherly or want to start looking at animal anatomy more closely, I'll send you to two places, Joe's website here, and Joe's book. His book goes over a lot of what we studied in person, and it's a great place to start, I highly recommend, and I'll be adding this firmly onto the reading list page. Definitely keep an eye out for his next workshop, I'm going to try my hardest to attend!
Natural History Museum
Sleepy Tiger and a very happy Lama
Reptile House
Camel's and Okapi's
The Camel on the top right looks a little like Ian Hislop
At the end of the Last day, there was a guy with a Giraffe's skull, so I managed to get in some scrappy studies to help construct the head a little better in later observational studies.
Thanks to Joe for coming to England and braving our cold Summer (compared to California!) and thanks to Gillian for organising it all!
Over and Out
About a month or so ago I attended Joe Weatherly's drawing workshop. It was fantastic, I can't describe the awesomeness, and how much I learnt during the 4 days. If you ever get the chance to attend his classes around the world, I highly recommend it.
The first day was spent in a lecture room, talking about anatomy and artistic styles. It was great to be introduced to a whole heap of new artists and going over some of the classics. Joe drew out how we should focus on structure underneath the animal. As once you know what is going on in the inside, you know why stuff is protruding on the outside. Structurally, it also helps a ton with animating animals. He advised us for our future to studies to spend allotted times on studying certain aspects of anatomy, i.e studying hands or paws for a month.
The second day was spent at the Natural History Museum (NHM), where we could spend time studying the structure of the animal from the inside, and not worrying about it wandering off :P. I find your mind's eye likes to summaries and soften your impression of construction, you start to assume you know how it works, mainly because, well, we have bodies! But drawing skeletons and really studying them illustrates how many things you miss, or assume are there or not there. These studies are purely that, for studying, the pieces from the full four days are there for learning, not to put on the wall. I also found out a lot of structural information that I hadn't really seen before, it was truly eye-opening.
The third and fourth day was spent at the London Zoo. We mainly studied the giraffes, as they reflected a lot of what we had studied at the previous destinations, i.e. horses and stags. We also got to spend a little time with one of the Tiger's, the Lions, and a bunch of reptiles.
As we walked around the Zoo spending a lot of time at each animal, I took a few photos for reference studies later on (see below) and we also got a lot of attention from the public, at both the Zoo and the NHM. It's funny how different people react to us studying, and the difference between very intrigued children and very naughty ones!
One of the things we were asked to practice and think about was to start to learn and remember how the animals looked, because as they are always moving, we were going to have to start drawing from our imagination and memory to get the poses we wanted want. It was a really interesting way to train ones brain.
Anyway, so I've collected a few of my sketch book pages and a few of the reference photographs I've taken, all posted below. If you want more information on Joe Weatherly or want to start looking at animal anatomy more closely, I'll send you to two places, Joe's website here, and Joe's book. His book goes over a lot of what we studied in person, and it's a great place to start, I highly recommend, and I'll be adding this firmly onto the reading list page. Definitely keep an eye out for his next workshop, I'm going to try my hardest to attend!
Natural History Museum
Leg doodle and notes by Joe to help me construct my Mammoth better.
London Zoo
From Memory, after some studying
Sleepy Tiger and a very happy Lama
Reptile House
The Camel on the top right looks a little like Ian Hislop
Okapi Butt
Thanks to Joe for coming to England and braving our cold Summer (compared to California!) and thanks to Gillian for organising it all!
Over and Out
Sunday, 20 July 2014
Bic
So after attending Joe Weatherly's Drawing Workshop (which I will do a post about), I've got more and more into drawing with Bic Biro's and here's a little page from Friday lunchtime
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
Teesside
Soooo I said I'd help my University with their Alumni Association. I didn't realise they'd make my face THIS big, but I'm flattered nonetheless. Also, it was so close to my promotion, my title is wrong (just want to point that out :P)
Friday, 13 June 2014
David Beckham
I worked on a new advert for the new Sky Sports channel with David Beckham. We had to attack sportsmen with flying drones, and I got to animate the drone that flies at Beckham's head :D. At one point, one of the feedback comments was "We want more danger" referring to the closeness of the drone to Beckham's head. It was a fun few days work!
Tuesday, 3 June 2014
BLANK
There's post's I've mentioned in the past about not being afraid of the blank white paper and techniques I've used in life drawing classes that I used to teach to help the other students get past the "fear". Well, I came to write this post, as circling the internet has been this video (below) and Ricky illustrates wonderfully one of the techniques you can use, and tapping into that inner child.
Moreover, last night I was reading "Drawn to Life" again (nearly done!), and I got to section about how you can get inspired by an impression, by observing, but if you don't express this, it will lead to depression. As you get in a forever cycle of feeling like you have down something (by getting inspired) but haven't had anything to grant you a rewarding and accomplished feeling (by doing), and it starts to have the adverse affect on you. Once you get inspired, remember to illustrate your feelings, your findings and your observations, even to note down that silly thing you saw happen on the way to work.
Now, let go and have fun, oh and get inspired ;)
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