Get Lost

**In case you haven't noticed my new icon to the right I have started a tumblr.  Most of the art on there is different from what I post here so check it OUT!  It is also a place for me to post pics and whatever the heck else I feel like.**

With this failure challenge I have been experimenting a lot and working through a lot of my own problems.  I've been breaking out of the cage of my mind and doing new things.  This has been fantastic.  Sometimes when I try something new I can't wait for it to be over and I hate it.  That in itself is some form of progress!  Yet more often than not I find that the hours fly by and any noise of the outside world receded to an imperceptible buzz.  All of my worries and emotions quiet down as if they know something important is happening and they must now wait their turn to be heard.  I am lost to the outside world but during those moments I have found myself completely and I know who I am.
When hunger or phone shakes me out of this I am often startled by how much time has passed.  I take note.  When I Get Lost....I know I have found something important to me.  Something worth doing, something worth learning and pursuing 
When I sketch at a cafe, I am lost.  When I sculpt, I am lost.  When I animate, I am lost.  These things I knew.  What I did not know is that I would so loose myself in painting, and designing.  In finding those moments that I can shake the world loose and have only myself to dominate my awareness, I have stumbled onto new paths I never thought I'd cross.
So I think the thing I have taken away from all this is the only way to find yourself is to Get Lost.

FAILURE CHALLENGE #16

Painting during the day and at sunset from my balcony facing west for the purpose of studying the changing light.  I used Acrylic and spent about 5 min on each painting.

The Value of Values

I've been really trying to get a handle on colour for a really long time.  Whenever I see an amazing composition of colour by another artist (Nathan Fowkes!!) I get super excited.  And I really want to be able to capture colour and mood in an exciting way.  So I've been putting a lot of time into understanding colour.  I have this amazing book that really breaks things down well about colour.  One of the driving principles is how we measure colour.  One of the way we measure it is in values and although I had heard that many times before I didn't really understand it until now.  So I went and go myself some greytones markers and started putting down the values in drawings from observations.  The result was a huge learning experience for me because it helped me understand some of the mistakes I have been making.  I HIGHLY recommend that book and also do yourself a favour and just stare at Nathan Fowkes art for a while.  It's so freaking beautiful!  Another bonus about marker?  YOU CAN GOUACHE ALL OVER IT!

FAILURE CHALLENGE #14

Feeeeeeeelings

Maybe it's something in the air, maybe it's because my 8tracks playlist just started playing Backstreet Boys or maybe it's because I'm about to move into a sweeeeeeeeeet new apartment.    Either way this is how I've been feeling lately.  Also me and photoshop have really been getting along lately.  I took some time, put some work into that relationship and we haven't fought in WEEKS.  A new record.

FAILURE CHALLENGE # 13

I'm counting this as a failure challenge even though I didn't set out to do this as part of it.  I just sat down and wanted to experiment and this is what happened.  It's worth noting though that before I started the failure challenge I would have been too afraid/anxious to just freely experiment like this.  Progress people, PROGRESS!

Marked

Things are quite busy over here.  But most importantly: Look!  Marker!  I tried sketching with marker a while ago and wasn't crazy about the result.  I kind of gave up on them at that point.  I think mostly it was because I still didn't have a good grasp on colour.  Since I've been working a lot more with colour and studying it more consciously I thought I'd give markers another shot and I'm really enjoying them this time around!  I started a new sketchbook about a week ago and every page so far has marker on them.  This is a really great way for me to get down colour ideas on the spot.  It's worth noting that I felt my usual amount of fear/anxiety about trying something I knew I'd failed at before but the difference is that I ignored that feeling really easily and was able to just dive in without worrying too much about whether or not things would look good or not.  Hurrah for the magic of the Failure Challenge!!!

FAILURE CHALLENGE #12

As I was drawing this the woman came up and asked to see it.  I was worried she would be offended at the way I drew her.  If she was she didn't let on so bullet dodged!!

Loving It

Ever since I took a chance and used oil pastels at the last Dr. Sketchy event I've really fallen in love with them.  They are super portable and good for getting colour down fast.  I have been wanting to paint landscapes for years now and have struggled with the portability of paint.  So here is a much simpler solution that has allowed me to make colour observations and sketch in the great outdoors!  This is something that (again) I've been wanting to do for years at this point but was too afraid to do it.  Well look at me go!

FAILURE CHALLENGE #11

I also just want to say a quick thanks to those of you who have been following my failure challenge and encouraging me!  It means a lot and helps me keep my momentum so thank you!

Shifts

SO MUCH IS HAPPENING.

This failure challenge was really a catalyst for change that started with my art but then spread into other areas of life.  Something that I read recently that really stuck with me is "routine kills creativity".  Anyone who has been reading my blog for a while may have picked up on the fact that I LOVE ROUTINES.  I go to the same coffee shop every day at the same time.  I sit in the same seat and order the same thing.  I draw the same thing with the same pen.  Every day.  If one of these things changes slightly, I get instant anxiety.
Well since pushing myself to explore new things I've realized just how much my routine was limiting me.  It basically guaranteed that I would experience the same thing day after day and it really left no room for surprises.  So I took a little break.  And when I started up again I brought pens and pencils with me.  I went to a different place to draw.  I drew people and anything else I saw.  Then I stopped looking around and drew what was in my mind.  The first few days were really scary but I knew that what was even scarier was the thought of repeating my routine for even one more day.  The world is always moving and changing and sometimes you have to grow just to stay still.

And something else happened.

My anxiety went away with my routine.  I don't have an internal freak out if things don't go as I expect.  I'm able to actually take in what's different and enjoy it.  I have so much changing and going on right now with my art and I can't wait to share it.

So here's a start:

FAILURE CHALLENGE #10
(One third of the way through my challenge! Yay me!)

Dr. Sketchy's - Oil Pastel in my sketchbook

Normally I'd try really hard to get a realistic skin tone and try to stick with pure primary colours.  Also I'd normally use my go to medium which is gouache.  This time I didn't and I think it has a WAY more interesting result.  I used oil pastel and really just tried to have fun with the colour and do something interesting while trying to remain true to what was in front of me.  It was a good night.

Water World!

I've been stuck on the problem of water.  My short film involves a lot of water and although there are many different ways I have seen this achieved in studios (resin with cling wrap, KY, hair gel etc.) I wanted to go a different route.  I don't necessarily want my water to look like just water (clear, glassy, reflective).  I want it to have some extra life and texture.  So I've been experimenting a lot with beads threaded on animatable wires to animate waves of water but it just looked to stringy and not quite what I was going after.

Last night I was experimenting with different textures for another part of the set when I had a brainstorm.  I got a small tupperwear container and filled it with 70% table salt 10% water and 20% different shades of blue beads.

Somehow the sum of these parts created a very animatable substance.  And because it was made out of very small particles it was easy to animate in some of the subtleties of water.  I did a quick test animation last night and was very pleased with the initial results.  I feel that the next round of tests will be even more successful   This is a HUGE step forward since the water solution was really holding me back.

I'm really excited to test some more with this.  Last night I just threw in whatever beads I had but I feel like some of them were just too big.  Next time around I'm going to keep it smaller and work with different tones a bit more.

Blues

FAILURE CHALLENGE POST #8

I went for a walk the other day and came across some awesome busking.  The musicians switched every 20 min and they all sang different genres.  It was amazing how the way they dressed and presented themselves was so cohesive with their genre.  I want to work with the blues guy and flesh out that illustration so I've started with some gouache studies.  Well, thats a lie.  I started in Photoshop but felt so disconnected the I just switched to gouache.

This failure challenge has been really amazing so far.  I'm really pushing myself to do things I was so nervous to try.  I've been painting way more and also drawing a wider variety of things as well as experimenting with the way I draw.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHEXCITING!

Handsome Man!

Well well who's this?

If you recall I was getting quite frustrated with the thread lock giving out on my old ball and socket armature.  Heck, I even gave it one last chance and cold welded the armature together.  However when I did that one of the balls snapped off and I didn't have a spare.  So I took it as a sign that I should really consider making a wire armature like the ones I used on Beforal Orel and Robot Chicken.  I sooooo enjoyed animating with those so it's not like I'm settling here.  This current armature is made of Apoxie sculpt and aluminum armature wire.  The Apoxie sculpt is great because I can sculpt the shapes into their general form and then when it cures I was able to go back with a dremel and refine the shapes a bit more.  

Already this armature is holding up a lot better than the last one.  During fabrication of the ball and socket things kept coming loose and I'd have to backtrack, cleaning off parts and then setting them again and again.  

So now I'm pretty excited to see if he will last through a walk cycle (another area where the last armature came up short).  Then some movement tests.  I pretty much want to see how far and how long I can push him until he breaks.  This is by no means my final armature, I'm just testing the method.  There are already some modification I know I want to make as far as the placement of the neck and other miscellaneous details.

If I'm able to animate this guys for a while I'll take the next step and cover him with foam and test the movement with that.  Although I know I shouldn't be getting ahead of myself in case he breaks too fast, I can't help but plan our future together!!

Back Forward

Oh Boy.

I ripped apart my leg build up.
I disassembled the hip/thigh and feet joints
I cleaned them.
I put them back together with JB weld.
I WALKED AWAY.
I came back 24 hours later.
Things are looking good!














Oh wait... no things are looking bad.


















I stopped and had a moment with myself.

I should just rip this whole thing apart and start again / that will take a long time / sometimes its worth it to just cut your losses / if I don't take the extra time now I may be screwing myself horribly in the future / but I really like the way the torso came out.... and it is still working fine / if it ain't broke don't fix it / what the hell should I do


THIS IS FUN


Yup.  In the midst of complaining and cursing to myself I found myself smiling.  The truth of the matter is no matter what I love building things.  I also love destroying things that have been craftily built (if you are a stop mo animator you KNOW the joy of being handed a beautiful pristine prop knowing that to do your shot right you MUST DESTROY IT).  So I ripped off what was left of the legs.  I cleaned them again.  I JB welded again, this time a little more thoroughly.  Then I posed the crap out of my puppet because a) it seemed like a fun idea b) I could test if the torso and arms were still holding up.

Cleaned off the parts with rubbing alcohol

Skinny thighs after ripping off all of the foam leg build up.  All that remains is the apoxy sculpt that I reinforced the  lower leg with.  I think I will go back and reinforce the upper leg as well. 

Posing without fingers!!  The fingers are being kept safe in a ziploc for now.   I'm also going to redo where the neck joint attaches to the head.  This is only a placeholder head anyways!

They held up.  I'm gonna leave them for now.  If I need to rip apart the precious work I have put into my puppets in the next few weeks, I'm ok with it.  In fact it's going to be a good time.


Oh yes and back to the point of this entire post.
For ever step backwards that has happened, I learn something.  Even if it is the tiniest something I still have a little more information than when I started.

Therefore every step backwards is really just another step forward.

So there are no backwards steps.  This makes me feel pretty alright.

Everything Everywhere All The Time

Lately my mind has been a jumbled mess.  It is frustrating because I've had some really good extended periods of time of non-jumbledness and those times are so productive and fun.  But I suppose what goes up must come down and I'm just in one of those down times.  I have confidence that the next time I am up it will surpass my last most creative period.  Things just seem to happen that way.  For now I am trudging along, doing what I know I should be doing the best I can until I can snap out of it and run (creatively speaking of course...).  I've been experimenting with some textiles!  I made a rule recently that if something sounds like I fun I do it.  So buying embroidery thread and experimenting with different ways of wrapping it and even having a go at knitting with it using fine wire as knitting needles happened. It was fun and interesting.  So mission accomplished.  I had this thought about using embroidery thread instead of latex paint for the skin of my Old Man.  Experimentally it is not working in a way that I like.  But I think I want to explore some new colour themes and then maybe some new approaches.  I'm not fully giving up on the idea yet.....  I'll let you know how it goes.

Experimenting with mixing different colours of embroidery thread to see how different colour combinations/wrapping and weaving read optically.  These are wrapped around his legs.  Screen Left leg is just wrapped while Screen Right leg I braided the thread first then wrapped it.

Col-erase is SOOOO last april

So i bought some new pens a while ago and I'm finally putting them to use. I also got some SWEEET new brush pens that I filled with some water colour so I can paint on site. Water colour doesn't really hold up when being scanned though cause its SOOO transparent as opposed to my lovely gouache. Anyways drawing with the pen is challenging me which is GREAT.