Sunday, April 27, 2014

That will be it for a while....

I'm finding it hard to update several forms of social media at a time, and this one is actually a 3rd blog that I have, so, I'm going to stop posting here and stick to my tumblr page as I feel I post more on that.

Ta-ta for now, see you on Tumblr, hopefully.... it's jazzyfizz8.tumblr.com
Jasmine

Workshop with Brian 'Footwork' Green at Gravity Studios in Adelaide on the 17th of April, 2014.

I almost didn't go to tonight's workshop with Brian 'Footwork' Green, because I was so tired from work and not really 100%. But, as usual by the end of the workshop, after doing hip hop, house, African and waacking, I was on top of the world, and had no idea what problems are... Dancing fixes everything! And Brian Green is amazing! AMAZING! He's been dancing for 35 years, and I think anyone who makes a life doing what they love are pretty awesome. What a legend! I feel so lucky that I get to do these workshops, these guys are the real celebrities for me.

I'm adding on to this - taken from a conversation with Minh-Tri Le asking what I got out of the workshop: The thing that I took away was that I asked him how he was able to stay dancing for so long, what he was doing. He used ballet as an example of not ripping his muscles in order to get his leg in places that his body actually wasn't capable of. It's the first time I've ever heard anyone talk about it, because most of the time I think dancers strive for perfection, sometimes even when it isn't physically possible for them and they still push it and by the time they're 40 they can't walk. I felt like I could relate because I'd like to be dancing for as long as possible. He also gave really good advice if you're looking for a career. My favourite class was the waacking, I just enjoyed it, and he used people as examples and gave really good direction to help them, I feel like performance is really lacking in Adelaide because we don't see it enough or don't know how to perform. As for the hip hop class I found that the most challenging and don't think I got anything... another reason why I was there!

#dancingfixeseverything #brianfootworkgreen

Friday, April 4, 2014

Life drawings from last night

Here are some life drawings from last night's class at CDW Studios (again I would encourage everyone to check it out at www.cdwstudios.com)...

3min sketches

5min sketches

10min sketches

And 15min sketches. The bottom drawing I really struggled with due to foreshortening... Plus I can see there was a big focus in the class on hard and soft lines, and trying to describe the form in the best way possible. It was pretty inspiring.

I've also been listening to the Paper wings podcast on storyboards, they talk about your lines as being a big indicator of whether your amateur or professional. So line quality is important and I'm trying to do neater sketches.

And the last 10mins....

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Things that have inspired me lately..... And other thoughts.

I actually had a bad day today, well it started bad, and then it got good. But this post is a summary of 'lately'.

Lately, actually longer than lately, I've been stuck in a rutt. For much of February up until now with Art. I've been doing two classes with CDW Studios this term (you can check out their site at: www.cdwstudios.com), 'Introduction to 3D Animation' and 'Advanced Character Design'. These courses are amazing... But I feel that I've gotten really lost, from what I'm wanting to do or focus on and then being paralysed when it comes to homework where I just haven't been doing it.

I've had discussions with two of the teachers from CDW in trying to get to the bottom of why I'm investing in classes yet I'm not motivated to draw. Anyone would think I was just plain lazy and I've been thinking that I don't really like this anymore. People who draw regularly are mostly very passionate people and I'm passionate when I can spend all day looking at people's art for inspiration, I'm completely in love with it. But I'm literally sitting on my hands when it comes to doing it to myself. It's just not happening. But then I realised a few things have changed with me.

I've gone for so long thinking that for me to be happy in a job, I need to be extremely passionate about it, so until I was a working as an Artist, I would just be settling and I wouldn't enjoy things as much etc.... But I'm actually working in a job that gives me great satisfaction that I enjoy going there, doing the work and I'm motivated to work my ass off when I'm there. So that has surprised me. And I'm about to start a promotion so I'm really happy in my job. So where does that leave my art? I'm accepting the idea that I'm just going to keep working on it so that I keep improving, and I don't have the drive to leave my work to pursue an art job. But who knows how long that will last.

Last week I took the week off of doing things after work so I could catch up on 3 weeks of homework. Did I catch up on it? No, I did not. It turns out I needed a rest and I'm not actually focused at all.

This is the inspiration bit:

I've turned to James Clear's blog for self-help on becoming more productive. I highly recommend reading his blog, he really puts things into perspective. His blog is at: www.jamesclear.com. I've signed up for his newsletter.

I've been listening to Chris Oatley's podcast. This is AMAZING! I would say it's inspired me to get back to work... I've listened to these 3 lately:

The Rising Stars Of Animation: Betsy Bauer, Elsa Chang, Jessie Greenberg, Natalie Hall, Sarah Marino & Isaac Orloff: ArtCast #59

which you can find here: http://chrisoatley.com/rising-stars-animation/

I originally listened to this because I saw Elsa Chang's name, I follow her blog, and she is definitely a great Artist already. The thing about the whole podcast for me though was that I'm closer to these Artist's then professionals, so the information they give is more current and applicable to me. They also talk about meeting Glen Keane, and having met Glen Keane, he would be my favourite subject to listen to....

Next was:

Are You Good Enough? Tough Truths For True Artists: With Will Terry :: ArtCast #66

http://chrisoatley.com/will-terry/

For me this was a kick up the butt. They talk about things like, what price are you willing to pay for success, for example, what do you need to sacrifice in order to get where you need to be. Very much the 'how' in how are you going to do it. Oh and why a job at Disney or some other studio usually isn't enough to completely fulfil you as an artist. It just covered so many things that I really needed to hear.

And today I listened to this one:

Creating A Professional Storyboard Portfolio :: Paper Wings Show #27

http://chrisoatley.com/storyboard-portfolio/

One of my goals is to go to CTNX at the end of the year. I've got two unfinished storyboards, that I really want to get finished so I can put them into a portfolio. There is great advice in this, such as (in a comment on the page by Justin Copeland): "It wasn’t until I got into animation, and have been forced to do hundreds of drawings a day that I got better at the technical aspect of drawing. But what really changed me was that I started to focus on the story aspects more. What is the character feeling, and how can we show that, in a way to move the story forward? If you strive to answer that question, your portfolio will be something that you will be proud of for years to come. Good luck."

So, as a result of these little discoveries, I've decided I'm still going to work to be an Animator - a traditional animator/comic artist/visual-development artist for Animation I might add. So that's my thoughts for now with this post... I'm thinking I should also update this regularly with my learnings in relation to this post... Glad I got that out. I've gotta get back to working on it now though.
TTFN, ta ta for now!