A bit giffy

Here is my first foray in to the world of animated gifs!!  My most recent assignment in the graphic design class I'm taking at SVA was to come up with a concept for a dream you had.  I roughed a page detailing a dream, almost like a sequential story, but it just wasn't clicking.  

Then I remembered one of my favorite dreams, where I was tap dancing like Gene Kelly.  Drew up a concept, chatted with the professor, and then we decided I'd try creating a gif! This was based on Singin' in the Rain when the three of them (Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds & Donald O'Connor) are walking along, so I knew I wanted to make it a bit of a jaunty walk.  It was also inspired by the ever talented & master of gifs, Anthony Holden!  Mine is quite choppy but it was great practice.  Imagine the tune 'doo doo doot doot do dah doo doo doot doot... I'm siiiingin' in the raaain...'

We be colorin'

This weekend is the CTN Expo, a time where artists from all over gather to trade/sell artwork, have presentations & give talks, and just in general get together and have an amazing time.  I plan on hitting this up next year and cannot WAIT to go!!  To see friends that I haven't caught up with in awhile and to also meet some of the artists that I've admired... it'll be incredible and such a wonderful experience.

Anyway, a good friend & all around awesome person, Rachel Tiep-Daniels, will be there at CTN to debut The Picture Book Project!!  She and Margaret Wuller, both Dreamworks artists, created the PBP Foundation which helps raise funds to support children and families around the world.  For the Picture Book Project, Rachel, Margaret, and Pixar Producer Karen Dufilho-Rosen collected artwork from 66 animation artists to create a coloring book that will raise funds to support orphaned children cared for various organizations in Africa, Mexico, and Cambodia.

 

Cartoon Brew did a fantastic post about the book and event, which you can find HERE!  And then here are the two pieces that I contributed:

I feel very lucky to have been a part of this.  Congrats Rachel, Margaret & Karen, and have so much fun this weekend!!

Art dump!!

Happy October!  Alright, this post is just a whole random assortment of things. 

The studio is expanding, which means we now have an official ART GALLERY space!  I contributed this to the show (please excuse my poor photography skills):

"Weirdos who Rocked the World"

(4x4 canvases : collage, acrylic, spray paint)

Can you tell who's on there??  I won't make you guess.  It's Chuck Berry, Lucille Ball, Howard Hughes, and the one and only Jim Henson with his pal Kermit.  I had a blast making the stencils and seeing what would happen when I spray painted them.  Thank you all who made suggestions of weirdos!  The show itself was fantastic and really beautiful, so many talented people here.

Coming up so very soon is Halloween, one of my favorite holidays & one that is big here at work.  I made these Save the Dates for our costume competition and kids trick or treat:

 

 

 (Does this look familiar?  Thank you, Children of the Corn!)

Some noodes...

 

Random sketches...

 

I need to draw more noodes & people.  New York is the best for people watching.

And now for some very exciting news...

 

My sister & her husband are having a baby!!!  BUMP WATCH!  Little Biscuit is due in January and we all are over the moon for them.  My sister is my best friend & she has such a wonderful husband, I can't wait to meet their daughter.  They're going to be amazing parents!! 

That's all for now folks.  Happy happy Friday!     

i'm BACK!

AH HA!  What!  How was my last post 4 months ago!  Where have I been.  Well, let me tell you.  I was assigned some really fun & exciting stuff at work which took up a lot of my free time.  And then when I did have free time, it was either spent working on freelance work or commissions or seeing what was left of my social life.  My apologies on the lack of posts though, little blog.  I'm really excited about this upcoming summer, and trying to get in more sketching, museum visits, life drawing & just in general getting down to the nitty gritty.  But enough of that.  Here are some sketches!

(Ceelo & his angry looking white fluffy cat from 'The Voice', girl walking on the street, girl on subway who was wearing a giant hat, and quick sketch of Michelle Williams at the Oscars.  I loved her dress!)

Jekyll, Hyde, and a whole lotta shapes a-goin' on

It's crazy, you blink and the month is already almost over! Here's a bit of a doodle dump from my character design class. It has been a lot of fun, right now the goal is to really work on basics & stick to finding fun and interesting shapes. So read on, lovely blog reader! Read onnnn. And feast your eyes on some sketches!

One of our ongoing assignments is to work on our own versions of Jekyll & Hyde. Originally, I was thinking of having my Jekyll & Hyde be a 1920's Jungle Explorer turned Monster due to downing a Witchdoctor's potion. Here are a few shape ideas for those characters:

But then while listening to music (the 'Drive' soundtrack = great tunes to draw to), an idea came to me. What if my character was from the Vaudeville era! And wants to DANCE. So I thought of Jekyll being a Vaudeville theater's janitor, a very small but stocky man of about 4'0, who perhaps has scoliosis. He's loved by all at the theater community, is a little shy, and his dream is to dance. One night he falls in to his cleaning solution and turns in to Hyde: a tall, graceful & beautiful dancer. It's his dream come true... except for one thing: Hyde has a nasty jealous, dark side to him. He must be #1. Jekyll comes back around to find that one of his dancer friends has been murdered... Was it Hyde?! To his dismay... yes.

A few shape ides for the Vaudeville Jekyll/Hyde:

And then further exploration below:

I'd like to explore Jekyll a bit more, I don't quite feel as if I've gotten him yet. We shall see.

Last but not least! An exercise in caricature:

(We were to draw the image of the bowler hat man realistically and then caricature his face, focusing on making it a type of circle, square or triangle.)

& quick doodles - emotions, stuff I did during the day:

More to come! There are some awesome projects that I want to finish before Feb 1st rolls around & I can't wait to share them with you.

Happy New Year!

So here we are, 2012! Hope everyone has had a relaxing & fun long weekend (if you had today off, which I hope most of you did!), and had a great time saying farewell to 2011 & ringing in the New Year.

I'm taking a Character Design class that lasts 9 weeks - check it on out at schoolism.com if you have any interest! Our first assignment was due today, with it being to sketch out a character named 'Walter' who is in his 60's, wears a monocle & smoking jacket, and is a wealthy entrepreneur. I had a lot of fun sketching him out and am really looking forward to receiving feedback. Feel free to drop me a line & let me know what you think!!

Full body sketches:

Head sketches:

And color!