What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 464

Hello everyone and welcome to what was my work space last night - my lap. Please excuse the jammies.

I was (and still am) tracing jackdaw images for one of the animations I'm working on for uni. This is for a technique called rotascoping - remember that Aha video - Take On Me - where she disappears into the comic? That's rotascope. I believe that the Aha video was the first time the technique was ever used in a music video too.

For 10 seconds of animation I have over 140 pages (my printer died so I may have to loop somewhere along the way) and each page has two images to trace. So far I'm 50 pages and 100 images down - I swear it looks like I'm tracing the same jackdaw image over and over again - lets hope she moves when I animate her. I'm going to layer her over the top of some Silver Crow images I have done in the past. And finally - for those of you that asked last week... Thank you for being so supportive of these little animations. This is the boxes that I animated with a fellow mature student. We decided it had a definite Magic Roundabout vibe - betraying our ages. The idea was to give character and personality to inanimate boxes. So my friend moved the front while I did the back and the baby box. I am super proud of the wiggle!

Thank you for stopping by today - I'm popping over to Julia's at Stamping Ground to link up. Follow me over for more creative workspaces to have a rummage through :)

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 463

Good Morning from Sunny Kent. (Hopefully sunny, I'm pre-writing this post on Tuesday. Think Positive. Spring is here. Spring is here.)

This is a little cheat as this is actually my work space from Monday but it's where I will also be today. Not at home - no, I have brought you along to my university in Canterbury. This is the animation room. I had just been given a quick demo on how to use Dragon Frame - an animation software. I had missed the proper workshops as I work odd hours due to having to leave early sometimes to pick my kiddos up from school. Flaming nuisance, but hey - the school seems to take a dim view of my just leaving them there. (Jokes, jokes... Kind of.)

So at this point I'd been left to my own devices to just play and get a feel for it. The images are just cut from an art magazine and it's stop motion fun.

A couple of the animations are below, hopefully they will play. They're very basic but as a complete technophobe when it comes to all the arty digital programs, I'm chuffed to bits and...  *whisper* may actually like Dragon Frame and stop motion. Ssshhh. I have whinged my socks off about Animation taking me away from Illustration. So it's a bit annoying that I like this bit - maybe because it's so hands on and not all done on a computer... even though I'm using a computer... does that make sense?

So today, Tuesday, I am working on a concept for a longer 10 second animation and tomorrow, (today now) back in the animation room to hopefully put it together.

We have six 10 second animations to do using various techniques... Which has been freaking me out a bit but I am marginally less freaked out now that I have done this. I also did a 3D workshop on Monday afternoon where we animated cardboard boxes moving around, the idea being to give inanimate objects a personality and character. It was such a good workshop, really helpful. My workshop buddy and I went all Magic Roundabout. Showing both our ages.

I hope you all have a good week ahead. Pop over to Julia at Stamping Ground to see more more creative work spaces taking part in WOYWW. 

Thanks for stopping by :)

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 462

Hello everyone. Not a very creative desk to show you this week. I'm back at the dinner table - trying to bring my uni sketchbook up to date with all my animation research. I love the research, do loads - not so much the writing it all down. That's what trips my marks up so far - apparently the tutors can't see inside my head. Who knew?

In the background you might be able to see my tin of Neocolour II crayons and tiny sketchbook - that's from last night. Much more fun! Doodling around with the 100 Day Project - if you are on the computer you might be able to see what I was up to in my instagram bar - over there. >>>> If not and you are interested, I'm thinking of doing weekly blog posts... if I remember. Are any of you doing the 100 Day Project? Let me know and I'll come find you and see what you are up to.

The Bear says hello :)

For everyone last week that said they would like to see the outcome of Little Miss's first lino print - this is it. She was so pleased with it,  I told her she should be - it came out so well. (I may have been a teeny bit miffed too - my first one was nowhere near that good!) She's already given one to her Dad to hang in his shop and framed the Kraft one for her sisters 21st birthday. Which she signed, dated and told her she can sell for millions when she's a famous printer. The modesty is strong in this one.

First print - Ghost print - Kraft cardstock

She then found my stash of lino tiles and proceeded to experiment with them too. I didn't think she was ever coming out of there - am so pleased to have finally found something that's caught her interest... that isn't a gadget! She said she is definitely a printer.

I'm off to link up with Julia at Stamping Ground - follow me over to find more creative work spaces to explore.

Thanks for stopping by today :)

Silver Crow Project - The Watercolour

Hope you don't mind more images from last summers pre-uni Uni Summer project.  (That's a mouthful!) I am planning to continue the project when I have more time this summer so thought it was a good idea to try and post all the images so far and have them all in one place - see how I progress and have hopefully improved.

In case you don't know or are a new reader - Silver Crow is actually a silver jackdaw that flies around my local area. I've followed her around like a fan girl since my daughter first spotted her as a young baby bird pecking about when we were house hunting... back in 2011 I believe. I am obsessed with her and she is definitely considered one of my inspirations, my muse.  I believe in signs and totally convinced everyone we needed to rent this house off the back of seeing her. 

This one was mainly watercolour but with some gouache, acrylic paint, biro and Neo-colour II crayons thrown in as well. I used a gorgeous picture from Paint My Photo by Alex Lee Johnson as initial reference and then had her start transforming into Silver Crow.

I will be coming back to this one to try again, experiment some more - I haven't played with watercolours since this as the tutors have had us mainly on print, collage and Photoshop. There just hasn't been the time to do any in 'my' time. I really miss paint and am hoping we get more into it in the second year - though having said that have loved all the new print techniques I've tried too. 

Thanks for stopping by today :)

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 461

Hello again. I'm a little bit late and technically it's Thursday but here we go for WOYWW. Today Little Miss wanted to play with the XCut Xpress. I cut her a piece of pizza base foam to fit and told her to use a pencil to carve an image into it, which she did and then we went out to the garage (what I call my workshop when I remember not to call it the garage) and she rollered out some acrylic paint and set to...

She was a bit disappointed with her print not coming out to clear but liked the process, she also took a mono print off of the left over paint. I've said that tomorrow we can dig out the gelli plate for a play. 

In the meantime we found some lino, she drew out her design again and, after my initial little safety pep talk (solely from personal self injury experience) she set to carving her very first lino tile all by herself. We are going to put it through the XCut Xpress again tomorrow. She's very excited.

 Chocolate, music and print. Yep, she's definitely mine!

So that's my work space today - been taken over by a little apprentice. I'm now going to pop over to Julia at Stamping Ground to link up - follow me over. There will be many more creative work spaces to have a little peep and rifle through.

To everyone who was so lovely last week and asking to see my direct animation when it's done. I definitely will show it. They are all due for hand in on the 9th of May and I'm assuming (hoping) they will tell us how to view them before then. 

Thank you for stopping by today :)