Summer Life Drawing: May

Ed's an awesome model

One day I'll capture his poses

Cambridge Centre for the Arts

struggling to tie down lyrical lines

Starting to get gesture, Line of action, simplification of shapes

 and then some doughies

Eden Mills Life Drawing Group

 Warm up Gestures

Clear not Clean: Lovely lines/Force and bookspines

I can't stress the importance of books. Reading and research is super necessary, and I forgot that a lot throughout the year as I struggled to stay organized and scribbled away pages and pages instead of collecting some calamity and doing some problem solving. Sometimes animators are forced to draw so much our wrists stop working, our posture lags and our spirits fall.

I've felt that I've been just scribbling away my time and life, there's so much work and I'm trying to do so many things that it's easy to get overwhelmed. But then I look over and some of my friends, sometimes not even the most artistically talented are staying on top the the wave, sleeping regularly and are generally happy. Darn Christians. 

So then I went to church. And then I went to another kind of church.

Then I saw my friend get baptized.

That was a big one. It was amazing to see someone so committed to and filled with faith. After that I started reading this book blending sport psych and eastern philosophy (Mind Body Mastery by Dan Millman). Next I began reading Force by Michael Mattisse. I was astonished how many of these texts had cross-over and how much I could relate them to high school sports and acting class at J.F.Ross which shaped me as a teen.

I started early(er), breathing consciously, and I was refreshed, I was motivated for the day, in my messy, white walled basement apartment I was dancing to boogie wonderland, rocking out to the white stripes and getting ready for the day. I found a renewed excitement to get up and draw, talk, serve burritos, play basketball and study film all day. 

Around that time I made a commitment to get better at life drawing, not a goal to try but a vow to succeed in getting better.

I was filled with desire, that fleeting passion that flitters in and out of our lives was frequenting the church with me, when I played basketball with Sam, at the cat naps and meditation sessions I took throughout the day and now the newsprint pad. I wanted to capture this Flow in my mind by surrounding my body with it, living it. 

This Summer is my committed journey to improvement.

These are some exploratory gestures from the end of school around April 14th

 

APRIL 12th

  anatomical attempt 2mins

practise in spacing

Force style

 trying to milk the mood

Costume

I made a commitment april 12th to be a can of tuna and although I haven't been cylindrical recently I've got the ball rolling been studying and swimming along, beginning my low to high learning curve instead of the rocky ride to a frustrating plateau that I was stumbling along.

some april may shower flowers

 Elusive passion

times at timmie's down the street

Doing three weight figure in cafe sketching/peers at life drawing is awesome fun.

Laying them down

Our Layout Prof Mark Komza's great. He was one of the special profs that encouraged personal work and exploration in front of grades and school, that's just outrageous. His slides were ballin' resources, and his polish accent was a great addition to his fannpack, however like most of the first year teachers you needed to be proactive and seek out critiques instead of expecting him to get to you during the 2hr class (minus the hour lecture).

INITIATIVE

...i should get on that eh?

I was working on clarifying my roughs from the get go

 The arms are out of whack a moles

Empire strikes back feat. zombie chess

Quilted Machu Pichu

....

more to come

(I had a weak final portfolio)

Animation

And finally; here i post my animations from the year. What a long time it took me to wrap my head around the basic workflow, and the immense scared me from wanting to practise or focus on animation instead of working to get better in life drawing or layout.
I often got frazzled animating, because I'm always thinking on multiple levels on wave lengths totally unrelated.

Splash

Novel Interior

Last year I had a blast figure painting but this past year I've struggled to have fun and do well in painting for animation. I've learned more during my tutelage from Alex Chow (http://alexchowart.blogspot.ca/) than I have my whole schooling. I've spent the last couple of projects trying to juggle the proper workflow with the rest of my schedule and realized how much easier it is to come to a final piece after you follow the steps and be vivacious in getting a variety of feedback at each stage.

FICTO PLANET

This was rushed, like all of my paintings in this camel back learning experience of a year.

I am excited by the scifi idea and it's inspiring me to do a super spiral staircase layout along with the story.

ZOO!

45sec - 2mins

giraf studies

30sec-4mins

I just did pages and pages of gestures.

but considered these as studies.

3-5mins                         1-2mins

I definitely plan on using more fun media this summer flexing my gnarly membership!