#by making full scale illustrations in my class sketchbook

[fred-frederator-studios]

The Frederator Archives Library 

One of the wonderful side benefits of being in a visual medium is the partial archive that we’re able to compile over time, with special emphasis on Natasha Allegri’s Bee and PuppyCat, Butch Hartman’s The Fairly OddParents, and Pendleton Ward’s Bravest Warriors and Adventure Time. And in a digitized world, paper ephemera has become more and more rare. Over the past several years Frederator has been compiling themed books from our cartoon and channel repositories to share with our hardcore fans.

A couple of notes of note: Most of the books in the library are full color and printed at Amazon’s on-demand service. There’s no economies of scale, as in traditional printing, so you’ll find certain of the pricing pretty expensive. When available, I’ve also included links to downloadable PDFs for a quick advance read. 

Original Cartoons, Vol.1: The Frederator Studios Postcards 1998-2005

Our first book is a collection of our first five full size, limited edition postcards featuring all the Oh Yeah! Cartoons, including the world’s first look at images from Butch Hartman’s The Fairly OddParents, Bill Burnett’s & Larry Huber’s ChalkZone, and Rob Renzetti’s My Life as a Teenage Robot. Plus a look at the Hanna-Barbera/Cartoon Network posters from What A Cartoon! including Dexter’s Laboratory, Cow & Chicken, Johnny Bravo and The Powerpuff Girls; an AWN interview with moi, and an essay by graphic design historian Steven Heller.

Amazon paperback 256 pages $7.99     PDF

Original Cartoons, Volume 2:    The Frederator Studios Postcards 2006 - 2010  

Series 6 through 9 include all the Random! Cartoons cards, with the world’s first looks at Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time and Eric Robles’ Fanboy (but without Chum Chum). And an entire series of beautiful Frederator series title cards. 

Amazon paperback 158 pgs $29.95 (used from $5)     PDF

The MLaaTR Sketchbook: By the artists from My Life as a Teenage Robot 

I like this book so much I can’t believe we haven’t made one for every Frederator series. Creator Rob Renzetti and Art Director Alex Kirwan oversaw a crew of dozens of world class artists at My Life as a Teenage Robot. We curated their best pencil sketches into this compendium that should be on every aspiring artist’s bookshelf. 

Amazon paperback 122 pgs. $9.99      PDF

Original Cartoon Posters: From Frederator Studios 

I’ve been collecting posters for a long time, and producing original ones for almost as long. This poster archive book features our (almost) annual Frederator New Years set, and promotional posters from some our best shows. And there’s the added bonus of a handful of fan art posters for Adventure Time. 

Amazon paperback 122 pgs. $24.95     PDF

Wit and Wisdom in the Land of Ooo: Great Quotations from Adventure Time 

Frederator executive Eric Homan was getting such a kick from the first sets of Adventure Time storyboards that he started collecting the best at our Flickr archive. He selected the very best and the very funniest into this Wit and Wisdom. 

Amazon paperback 264 pgs. $10.00     PDF  

Original Cartoon Title Cards: From Frederator Studios 

...:::Update: 90 new pages, 300 color illustrations. 

Frederator loves title cards. We’re one of the only cartoon studios in the 21st century still using them for almost every episode we’ve ever produced. So why not show off our best from The Fairly OddParents, ChalkZone, My Life as a Teenage Robot and Adventure Time? And more! 

Amazon paperback 248 pgs. $30.99   PDF

The Declaration of Cartoon Independents: The Channel Frederator Network & Cartoon Hangover: Selected Postcards 2008-2015 

As Frederator dropped its own media channels like Channel Frederator and Cartoon Hangover, our postcard collections told stories about our fans as much as about our cartoons and their creators. More than 120 full color postcard illustrations our online animation network. Over the past 10 years, Channel Frederator's become the world's biggest animation network, built, film by film, by thousands of animators across the globe. Each of the creators completely controls their own channel, makes all their own decisions. There are no filters, no gatekeepers, no barriers to the expressions of these intrepid souls. Just the raw, direct, and often sophisticated moving picture expressions of the characters they love, the worlds they inhabit, and the stories they tell.        

Amazon 194 pgs. $39.95 (used from $12)     PDF

Original Cartoon Shorts: From Frederator Studios: Selected Postcards 1998-2015 

...:::Update: A new edition for a $10+ discount.

Short cartoons have been the lifeblood of animation for almost 100 years, and the talent that creates them have been Frederator’s vital spark for over two decades. And for almost as long, the studio has been releasing limited edition postcards honoring their creators, like Butch Hartman's The Fairly OddParents, Natasha Allegri's Bee & PuppyCat, and Pendleton Ward's Adventure Time and Bravest Warriors. 

Amazon 212 pgs. $27.99 (used from $12)      PDF

Frederator Loves You: Best of Frederator: Original Adventures in Cartoons, TV and Streaming 1998-2018  

The Best of Frederator. Adventure Time (Cartoon Network), Castlevania (Netflix), The Fairly OddParents (Nickelodeon), Bravest Warriors (Cartoon Hangover) and Bee and PuppyCat (Cartoon Hangover) are only a few shows featured in this "best of," with 513 color illustrations and 246 pages. Together we stand for independent artists. Frederator loves you! 

Amazon 246 pgs. $39.95     PDF

#Frederator #books #Frederator Books #Channel Frederator #Cartoon Hangover #postcards #posters #postcard #cartoons #animation #Adventure Time #Bee and PuppyCat #OddParents #Fairly OddParents #Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! #ChalkZone #My Life as a Teenage Robot #MLaaTR #Bravest Warriors #Random! Cartoons #Oh Yeah! Cartoons #What A Cartoon! #GO! Cartoons #Too Cool! Cartoons

[houseofvans]

SKETCHY BEHAVIORS | Interview w/ STACEY ROZICH (LA) 

From animal mask wearing people sifting through antiques to creepy mascots being arrested by equally creepy looking officers, Los Angeles based artist Stacey Rozich’s watercolor works are all things awesome. Strange, familiar, dark, humorous, and pleasantly eerie at times, Rozich’s paintings, while done in the style of folk traditional painting, are filtered through her own lens of modern pop culture. With some upcoming shows in the New Year–a group show at New Image in LA in February and a two-person show at Portland’s Talon Gallery in September–we couldn’t wait to chat with Stacey Rozich about her early experiences with drawing, her collaboration with Subpop Records, and her sketchiest story involving loud raucous metal heads and a little out-of-the-way saloon in Malibu in this latest Sketchy Behaviors. 

Photographs courtesy of the artist | Portrait by Kyle Johnson

Tell us a little about yourself.  My name is Stacey Rozich, or Stace, Stace Ghost, etc. I’m from Seattle, but I now live in Los Angeles. I’ve been painting in watercolor for the past twelves years, and drawing before that since forever. I sometimes do large scale versions of my work as acrylic murals, which is something I stumbled into. I dig painting in the folk tradition, but through my own lens of modern pop culture, and way too much tv watching as a kid. Seriously, I was an insomniac in middle school and for some reason my parents gave me a tv in my room, so I stayed up all night watching VH1 Pop-Up Video and Adult Swim (circa late 90’s). I have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of The Simpsons seasons 3 - 8 — I used to recite monologues from the show to my family when I was a kid. And I still do!

What was your first experience with art / drawing? And who were some of your early artistic influences? In Kindergarten I drew a many-legged leopard in the forest with crayons and I got a lot of praise for it from the other kids and the teacher. I felt a combination of pride and complete embarrassment for the attention I got for something I created without thinking. My earliest artistic influence was probably Sailor Moon. I wish I could say I was one of those really smart arty kids that loved Picasso, but honestly I wasn’t that aware of what “real art” was until later in pre teenhood. The flashy colors and character designs of Sailor Moon were so exciting for me! Even the lush watercolor backgrounds captivated me. I liked drawing people then so the outrageous proportions of the girls was something I could mimic in my own drawings.

Some of our favorite aspects of your work is your use of gouache and watercolors. Can you share with folks what it is about this particular medium you enjoy so much?  I absolutely love watercolor, and truthfully I don’t use gouache that much to consider myself proficient in it since it’s a slightly more opaque medium and I use it for accents. Especially the fluorescent gouaches I picked up in Tokyo, those against my watercolors pop nicely. But watercolor, yeah, I think I have that one in the bag. I remember using it in high school and absolutely loathing it — where was the control? One wrong move and it all just blended together into one big wet puddle. When I was a freshman at CCA (California College of the Arts in San Francisco) I took an intro Illustration class and the first thing our professor did was give us a watercolor demo; I was not looking forward to it. He was such a wizard with it! He gave us really smart instructions to not use very much water, and really “charge up the brush” with the pigments and paint it in and let it dry fully. That way edges of the paint have dried and created a barrier for the next application of color next to it. That’s why the barrier for entry with watercolor can seem too high, when it gets too slippery to work with there’s an overuse of water. I got that suddenly and it all clicked. Since i grew up drawing habitually I liked that I could use a very small brush and almost draw with watercolor, and large brushes to fill in certain planes with tonal washes. I like that I can wipe and dab away little pools of color and it creates a nice stained glass effect — that looks really lovely against a matte layer of watercolor that I’ve used extremely little water with. 

Are there other mediums you’d like to try in the future? In the future I would really like to start painting portraits of people in my life. Like, Alice Neel style portraits in oil. Oil intimidates me greatly so I think I’d start in acrylic.

What’s a day in the studio for you like?   I get to my studio around 10am since I’m not a very early riser, unfortunately. I so envy early morning people! One of my girlfriends who’s an incredible textile artist is up and at ‘em and hiking in Griffith Park by 6am. And there I am under the covers with a cat on stomach looking at her Instagramed hike thinking “Some day that will be me” — I like to lie to myself. Anyway! Once I roll into my studio I settle in to write some e-mails, putz around the Interwebs, and then get down to the task at hand. It’s usually 11 around this time so I’m usually really chugging along by 3, and then I’ll keep going for a few more hours. If it’s a painting for a commission or gallery show I tend to spread my timeline out so I don’t get burned out. If it’s a commercial gig there’s a lot more scanning, Photoshop clipping out and editing which can take me later into the evening.

What’s that process like? My process always starts with loose sketches on paper, which can mean in a sketchbook or whatever blank piece is lying closest to me. I work out compositions with really doodly lines — they’re virtually unintelligible but I know what they mean. When I move to the final I mostly wing it when it comes to the color palette. If anyone has ever seen my watercolor palette they know it’s a goddang mess  which works for me. I usually work with whatever shades I’ve pre mixed and let dry in the pan.

You’ve worked with various clients and companies over the years. Do you enjoy collaborating and what do you find the most challenging about it? I do like working commercially, the collaboration with art directors can be incredibly rewarding. Though there are times it becomes a slog when you’ve created about four or five killer rough ideas and they go with the weakest one. Why does that always happen? You have to do what they say essentially, but still keep your voice even when it feels a little pinched.

In 2015, you collaborated with Subpop Records on some amazing record art and design? Can you tell us a little about that collaboration and process? Subpop is one of my favorite labels to work with hands down. Their art director Sasha Barr is such a boss. I was really lucky when I was working on the Father John Misty album that I got to create the art and not worry about the editing process. I sent it up to them since they had access to a gigantic scanner to get a full high-resolution image. It meant a lot that I was able to do the art as an actual full scale piece, as opposed to broken up to little scraps and then scanned on my wee little ancient scanner. Sasha did all the leg work to clip out the whole thing and to figure out how to stage the multi-layered pop-up interior gatefold. Usually when I work with smaller clients they ask me to do all this which is…not a good idea. Ultimately that album packaging was nominated for a Grammy in Packaging Design in 2016, but we lost out to Jack White because of course. Damn you, Jack White!

What WOULD BE your ideal collaboration? I would like to work with a great publishing house to do my own young adult series. Basically all the characters and worlds I’ve been painting distilled down into a serialized art book/graphic novel type thing. That’s a big dream of mine that swings from feeling so possible and exhilarating and then feeling completely futile because everyone has the worst things to say about the state of publishing right now. I still have hope that someday I’ll get it together to at least put forward a proposal. 

On a different level I’ve love to design some patterns for Gucci. I’m not really up on the latest collections of luxury brands but Gucci is one I’ve noticed has been doing a fantastic job incorporating illustrations into their garments either as accents or printed motifs. The uniqueness of the artwork coupled with excellent hand done detailing makes my brain feel fuzzy in a really good way.

What type of music do you listen to when creating? Can you give us the top 5 bands you’ve been checking out? I waffle back and forth between music and a lot of podcasts. For the times when I can’t listen to anyone talk anymore, I listen to Jim James, Solange, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Shabazz Palaces. I just started listening to Andy Shauf’s new album which is lovely, it reminds me a bit of Harry Nillson. Also there’s a great massive playlist on Spotify called Twin Peaks Vibes that is excellent.

What’s your strangest or sketchiest art story that you want to share? I was eating lunch with some friends at this little out-of-the-way saloon in a canyon east of Malibu after a hike a few months ago. It’s pretty isolated down there — they’ve been using this place for filming Westerns since the 30’s so it’s a very specific strange and cool gem. I was sitting at the bar and these bros come in, being loud and raucous. I kind of internally rolled my eyes at them and ignored them. I hear one of them say “Excuse me — are you Stacey Rozich?” I got scared for a moment because anytime someone recognizes me by name I feel like I’m going to get into some trouble. I told him I was, and then he and his friends got very excited since they all were huge Southern Lord fans, and loved the album artwork I did years ago for the band Earth. I was really surprised (and relieved) and we had a good chat! It was a very unexpected encounter down at this little far away rustic saloon.

What’s a common misconception about artists?  Perhaps that we’re all lazy. That we don’t have a good work ethic since what we do is hard for most people to wrap their brain around. It’s a completely unconventional path to go down, and you have to be extremely dedicated to it. Yet somehow this doesn’t quite translate to most folks since it seems like basing your life and career on an unknown pursuit like art seems insane. And there’s an idea that artists have a lot of free time to spend laying around waiting for inspiration to strike. 

What’s been the biggest challenge for you as an artist? The largest challenge for me, honestly is: myself. I’ve been working solely on my artwork for the past six years and it’s been full of a lot of ups and downs: emotionally and financially for sure. There’s always a feeling of not being good enough, why aren’t I as good as this or that artist, why aren’t I doing X, Y or Z. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of myself for what I have accomplished but I need to remind myself of that before I go down a spiral of anxiety. It comes from a fear of rejection which can prevent me from pursuing things, submitting a proposal for the aforementioned young adult series for example. Sometimes I need to remind myself to get out of my head and to get out of my own way.

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t an artist? I’d probably be in finance, on Wall Street most likely. Kidding! I think about this sometimes. Being someone who creates has always been so tightly wrapped up in who I am as a person that it’s hard to extract myself from what I would be without. I would hope I would do something in Slavic studies. My dad’s side is Croatian (by way of Detroit) and while that’s been a huge inspiration for my artwork I’ve always been really fascinated with that region’s history of conflict and resilience. When I spent six weeks there back in 2012 it only deepened my love for that place and also my curiosity for what makes it tick.

What are your favorite Vans? A pair of beat up, worn in, maybe a couple of holes at the toe blue or red Authentics. A true classic.

What’s a question you never get asked in an interview and would like to ask and answer yourself? It would be, ‘If there was one person living or dead who you wished owned or could have owned your art — who would it be?’ To which I would say that’s such a hard question there’s so many people I admire! But as of this moment I think it would be rad if David Lynch had some of my art. I love his unstructured style of storytelling, all the loops and the sometimes frustrating dead ends his narrative world has. The effect of creating an unusual if not downright confusing vignette just for the sake of it reminds me of how I approach the storylines in my work.

What cool and interesting projects or shows that you’re working on - should folks keep an eye out for next year? Since it’s the end of the year things are usually pretty quiet in terms of projects, but I’m in a group show in conjunction with Luke Pelletier’s solo show at New Image here in LA in February. I’m scheduled for a two-person show at Portland’s Talon Gallery in September and! Hopefully, if it all aligns, I’ll be headed Internationally to do some muraling. I’m stoked for it!

FOLLOW STACEY | Instagram | Website 

#Art #Vans #Vans Art #Stacey Rozich #SKETCHY BEHAVIORS #female artist #vans girls #painting #gouache #watercolor

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i've said how it's occurred to me that the idea of "don't compare other people's art to your own" (which you do most of the time anyways even tho you know the reasons you shouldn't) can apply also to like, comparing how people relate to their art and what they expect of it and want from it, vs what you do. and i also make that comparison anyhow even though there's no reason to, and so i'll see some convo on twitter or something & get all somewhat frustrated or riled up coz i'm like, that's not me. so anyhow

i talked too much about the sink and now i'm trying to remember what my thoughts were that i was meaning to put here. i guess i was thinking first that it was weird to see a conversation about people being able to make money off their art, which is like, it's great of course when people who want to do that, can. but it's strange i guess because for me i've never drawn with the idea that it was what i "wanted to do" as a sort of career thing. and to get the full picture, i never had or have had anything solid i felt i wanted to do as sort of a career. that's just not how it goes for me. but it's odd because i've been drawing for ages and i've gone to classes outside of school for a good while and i did some classes in college and stuff, but mostly got kind of re-into drawing a while ago and started drawing more just on my own, not for any classes or anything, and have largely been self-taught in that way. and i don't mind the busy-work aspect of it, or spending 8+ hours on something in one sitting, or any of that, so it would seem to make sense like, oh this is your passion and what you're good at and so this should be your job. but, well firstly i don't think that the world of what a person does to make money is inherently meant to be the same as whatever their passion is. but also i don't even consider drawing or art in itself to be a passion, maybe an interest, but not really. it's what i'm drawing, which is gay shit—if i don't have something i want to draw into existence, i don't draw the way you should to just practice or create or something. and i Get all that about myself, but i suppose when the subject of being an artist as your job comes up, i have to feel defensive even if nobody's talking to me

i mean, there are reasons i've never felt it was something i would or could get money out of. mainly it's that really, i don't make art unless it's to make exactly the picture i want to see, which as you might know tends to be very specific and personalized exactly to what i want to make. as though nobody else does, i know, but the thing is that if i'm not drawing exactly what i want, i'm not drawing at all. back before i realized this about myself, i'd once or twice told a friend i could draw something for them, and fully expected and intended to, but of course never did because i just couldn't make myself even start. i can't do the sitting there for ten hours without tiring of it or enjoying the busy work or monotony or anything like that. i can't even put a pencil to paper or get my brain to start planning it out. it's why i tell people who ask that i don't do requests or commissions, it's only once in the bluest moon that i manage to even do it for friends. i sort of half-assed a bday card once and then some of my family got the idea that i ought to draw cards for relatives or something, my grandma told like a small child that i'd draw something for her, i started to lose my temper about it really fast which was an especial effort in that scenario, as the fallout for standing up for yourself could be pretty severe. but it was just that, that i can't even force myself to do it more than a handful of times, and those few times are miserable.

so what i'm getting at is that i genuinely really can't draw hardly beyond my niche fanart for myself. the whole thing just shuts down really fast. and for whatever reason, i'm 0% a creative person when it comes to stuff like making up my own stories, i can't even do that if i try. so i can't really draw things other people ask me to, and i've never wanted to use my art to make my own x y or z. i didn't even hardly want to draw before i realized i could make gay fanart for my blog, and as you can tell my ambitions for my ability to draw have never changed.

i don't know, i've supposed i could do illustrative art, but when i imagine it i know i'm mostly thinking about it in terms of "what if i was asked to draw this thing that would seem already slightly interesting to draw" and of course that wouldn't always be the case. plus, i have no experience, and also i'm lousy with traditional media, and also digital media. i only give myself an office pen and a cheap barnes and noble sketchbook because thats all i need, and i don't have the talent to get the quality out of quality art supplies and stuff. like, sure, copics would be fun, but i'm crap at inking linework, so that's out. and bad at choosing colors. so nah. and anyhow i can't even think of any other "job" sort of application

another problem is the true horror of how i can't draw anything in like less than a couple of hours, and even my fancier drawings are fairly simple and still take me hours upon hours or multiple days or even weeks. and i'm really inconsistent with output, i have "bad" periods where i just can't even meet my own standards, and i can't even get anything out of a few hours of effort. plus, my drawing process is lousy and counterproductive. i get too caught up in details before i've done the simpler planning stuff. and my focus is terrible, too, and i have to sort of have a set "distraction" like music or a podcast or a show to at least hold my wandering attention sort of nearby. even being aware of this sort of stuff doesn't fix it; my head just isn't good for getting stuff done quickly. i'm sure i couldn't work fast enough for anyone on anything

plus, my sketching is lousy. i have to clean stuff up too much, in part because i just like details too much a lot of the time. but just moreso, some people's sketches look really good you know? it's not clean or fancy or whatever but you can just tell it has life and it holds their style, because they're good at their linework. it's hard to make good "messy" drawings and people that can are just really good in general. i'm not good enough to draw fast, and my slow drawings are ludicrously slow. r.i.p.

i'm just not that good, either. in addition to having no experience with most mediums or with doing "projects" or with doing anything job-related or part of a group work or anything useful to anyone or applicable at all, i know that in my sheer drawing ability, i could say i'm middling, or probably middling-bad. and within the stuff i do, i have a lot of weak points, elements i don't practice as much & can only say i'm barely adequate or still just bad at. i'm not about to be competitive about what i can provide. and i'm inconsistent as fuck still, its like i'm always changing my ideas about how i draw certain things, or going through those "bad" periods where i forget how to draw somehow. frustrating. and not useful for work

anyhow then i have to think about what the value of it is. because while i've never exactly had ambitions about my art or considered it any more important that the one purpose it has, which is to draw the content i myself want to see. but thats not useless or anything. it entertains me and gives me something i feel i can do, and then when i've made something, it fulfils that purpose in that i get to look at it and have it exist. and if i'm lucky, someone who happens to want to look at it too in the same way i do will get to find it. i like to know that i'm providing that too for a handful of people who happen to have that exact same rando niche taste as i do. and of course i really value anyone saying stuff they like about what i make. i do put a good amt of feeling or meaning into a decent number of things, and some feeling into basically everything, so in that way everything is important to me and its meaningful to get compliments about it or people saying they enjoy it or caught that feeling i'd put in or whatever. i don't need to feel that it's super impactful or lasting or significant. i mean, i don't even like to call my art "art," because it feels so disconnected to a lot of concepts tied to that concept.

it reminds me too that i've gotten a lot of value in my life from the less "ambitious" or life-changing work that other people have done. like, not that anything isn't life-changing, but not a huge project that's intending to be a masterpiece or super serious and deeply meaningful or all-encompassing or whatever. how much mileage i got out out of mh, a youtube video series made by college students who just felt like it and it wasn't anything formal and it wasn't anything not Internet Horror Genre but i looked forward to those videos every week, i liked to spend time analyzing them and making diagrams and trying to guess where things were going, i liked to talk and joke about it. the pals i made from other people who liked it were some of the first people to talk to me even nearly that much and were people i could talk to during really shitty times when i didn't feel like i had any support. mh gave me something to look forward to on a scale of not only day to day or week to week but also month to month to year to year. during some really shit years. i had fun and i had stuff to be happy about, and its still really important to me. and it was always just some amateur people's spare-time project where with $20 and a forest or abandoned building they made something for their youtube channel. not that i'm saying marble hornets isn't super high quality and recognized as such because it absolutely is. i'm just saying that on paper it doesn't exactly sound "lofty."

thats always the stuff thats been most important to me anyways, and sometimes i'll see people who make exactly the kind of projects as the things i've always been enjoying, and they'll talk about feeling like they're not complete without that "big" project that's really signicant or something and really meaningful to people. and i absolutely get that people's goals should be whatever they are and they can strive for whatever they want, but it tends to make me feel kinda bad. as if that stuff they're doing now, the family of stuff that's what has the most value for me, isn't the important or meaningful stuff or otherwise not good enough. i don't know. so i tend to be aware that i don't think stuff that looks fancy or polished or that has any form more permanent than a png file on one specific website is inherently without value. i don't mind if people only get a little enjoyment out of my stuff. it's not that life and death important to me either. like, i don't mind if i don't make anything that anyone remembers all their life; if it dies with me and gets totally buried just a little while later and largely nobody thinks about it ever again. it's just more of an in the moment thing, if someone gets a small moment of enjoyment and moves on, that's totally fine

and really the more behind the scenes mechanics that you need to make money off anything you do is another reason i don't see myself ever being any kind of artist as a job. i already said i really can't be competitive about it, i'm just not organized, i'm not willing to push about anything or advocate for myself or any of that stuff. maybe someone would read all this and say well it's just excuses and if they would just motivate themselves they could do all of it or something, and if you do think it's just my faults and shortcomings then? ok. i won't stop you from thinking that. whether that's true or not, what difference does it make to me or what i do or don't do.

and also i just think that stuff you do that doesn't make money or doesn't even have an apparent usefulness to anyone doesn't mean it doesn't have value or isn't a skill.

anyhow, that's some ways i think about drawing when i have to think of why i don't intend or believe myself capable of using my drawing to get that cash. it's not a blow to me on account of i'm not a person who had/has dreams/goals/ambitions etc. i just get defensive about everything b/c i'm too used to being attacked. it wasn't relevant to the stuff here but i did once have to try explaining why i, with literally like minimal photoshop experience and nothing else, couldn't reasonably apply to a graphic website design position for a decent-sized company with an intl customer base. couldn't get my mom to believe i couldn't argue to them that i could learn digital art and vector art and website design and coding and photoshop and other platforms all in the course of several weeks or even a month or two, if i tried hard enough. it just goes to show that for every topic, i have a ridiculous story about my parents for it.

anyways, that's why i don't strive at all for any career position related to art and yet why i feel i have to argue for why i don't. useless or unimportant stuff is alright too. whats it to the world if one person's passable drawing abilities don't reach the loftiest imaginable potential and rake in the dough for life? the answer is: nothing

#long post /// #just out here talkin tonige #tonite* #gay fanart on my blog is all i'm about ppl #hilariously in all the time i was writing this i was not working on the drawing sitting 2'' away

[tsuede]

Change of shades

Tripunithura is a temple town much obsessed with it's past - a town in perpetual rumination. The place takes on the persona of that old lady who talks about her ancestral home's 'pathayam' full of rice reserves when she was young. The thin, pale, peripheral branches of a kshetreya legacy - the town's favourite residents. Vestiges of this aristocratic legacy are preserved in structures of brick, blood and society.

Towards the end of November is 'vrishchikotsavam,' the temple's anniversary, a week of chaos. The whole temple compound gets a golden glow at night, yellow luminance invading into the privacy of the black night sky. Camphor soot and dust, disperse the yellow light from the sodium vapour lamps propped on bamboo poles. Everything, and everyone, becomes beautiful in that light. I spend the nights near the wooden stairs of the West gate. They're relatively less crowded. It's not easy, you know, existing as the omnipresent like me. It's very distracting, and also, you don't have as much freedom. Everything becomes decided for you, you are restricted by the imagination of the dumb few who made you up - your shape, name, mobility, sexuality, where you exist, who you can see, who can see you - everything. It's hard. On the third day of utsavam I saw him in his favourite black tee and 'kaavi mundu.' His goatee is catching up since the last year I saw him. He knows I don't exist and hence doesn't bother visiting, except for these yearly visits. He's here for the 'panchavadyam' - the orchestral drum music. He stands away from the rush, in a clear patch, looking down at the sand moist with elephant pee, cross-armed, taking in the rhythmic beats of the chenda. But, today he's disturbed - too conscious of his presence. She is the reason. She's there standing by the gallery wall, with an ease which he can only dream of, and she's beautiful. Her sharp nose with a bump at 1/3rd the length, her exotic pale grey eyes, bony fingers with closely cut nails and her lilac chiffon churidar with floral patterned baggy salwaar. She waves at her sister who along with the rest of her family is watching the procession from the gallery reserved for the royal families. Privileges of your ancestors being fucked by some Aryan. Maybe it's these privileges that let her exist at ease in this crowd and maybe the lack of which makes him conscious of his presence in the same crowd. The space itself is new to his ilk. They are strangers, at least in the broader sense of the word. For her, he is just another face illuminated in yellow. But he knows her face a bit more thoroughly, maybe a bit too well, well enough to sketch it on a Monday morning from memory. He used to enjoy his bus rides back home from Palarivattom, after those wretched classes, with a curious sense of achievement. It was his reward for sitting through 8 hours of depressing lessons in cramped classrooms - his way of unwinding. One day she gets on his bus and sits a few seats ahead of him. He observed every curve on her head's silhouette. Next morning he woke up at 4 and started sketching it down so that he wouldn't forget how it looked. This was 5 years ago. He hasn't seen her since, until today. That face he sketched from memory, the only one he could - the bump on her nose, the grey in her eyes, everything was before him again. The chenda beats were muffled. He watched her as she sat down on the moist sand, cross-legged, leaning back on her hand propped on the ground. Then she closed her eyes, raised her head up and tried to read the beats. ..... Day 5, he came early. The panchavadyam wouldn't start in another 2 hours. He went to the koothupura to see the kathakali. 'Baali-vadhanam' is playing today. She is sitting at the back, in a corner. She recognizes his face from a dream she once had. The boy who painted her in the light of a kerosene lamp. Every stroke on the cotton rag canvas gave new colours to her skin. She got maroon hair, grey skin and yellow eyes. She loved how she'd changed, she wished she had maroon hair, grey skin and yellow eyes. She believed it was the light from the soot-covered glass shade of the lamp that gave her her new colours. She saw his face in the flickering glow of the 'aatavillaku,' and she felt the joy of having a chance to get the colours she never had. She relished the possibility in all its absurdity. The handheld curtain is let to fall and the music became louder, a few hurried stomps of the feet, and he looks back over his shoulder. Two beats skipped, two breaths stuck half-way, and two pairs of eyes averted. The first set of sticks fell on the chendas - panchavadyam has started. The Kathakali crowd started shrinking. She stood up, dusted her bottom and walked to the front. She introduced herself, 'Durga.' Two wide-opened eyes met the outstretched hand. 'Hey, I'm Tejus,' he shook the hand. 'You wanna sit?' She sat beside him. He's amused by Ravanan's face patterns, a bit of extra black and red, violent and threatening. This is the part where he abducts Sita to the forest confinement in Lanka. What if Sita wanted to be with Ravanan and the whole Ramayanam is a distorted version of the story - an elope rather than an abduction? The panchavadyam beats were getting intense, but neither of them felt like leaving. 'Do you draw?' Durga asked, noticing the black-bound sketchbook jutting out of his satchel. 'Yes... I like to sketch, yeah.' He was always reluctant to acknowledge his taste in art. I bet he felt noticed and exposed. 'What kinda things do you sketch?' 'I like doing portraits, illustrations, ...that kinda stuff.' 'Can you draw me?' Durga asked. A question that he's heard an umpteen times before, and yet, this time it was different; for both of them, both knew he already had. 'Yes... sometimes,' he replied with a shy nod. Tejus' phone rang, True caller tab popped up red, 'Bsnl telemarketing,' it read. 'Wow, Yumeji's theme? From "In the mood for love?" Are you a Wong Kar Wai fan too? They gushed over their love for Wong Kar Wai movies. They both thought they were the only ones to see all 10 of his features. Tejus' favourite was 'Chungking Express' and Durga's was '2046.' They talked about the omnipresent elements in his movies: the rain, mirrors, unrequited love, stop printing and catchy pop songs. When the nuances of Wong Kar Wai movies were exhausted they bitched about almost everyone who was sitting there - the GoPro techie who had brought the whole product box with him, the aunty with jasmine flowers on her head that had started to rot, the bald guy who ironically had scored most number of mosquitoes circling his head, the butt crack guy with a fluorescent 'Jockey,' the over engrossed mom whose kids they planned to murder, the sorority of princesses with matching blouses, and the oldie, who for some reason kept calling me, only interrupted by the periodic scoffs of disappointment at the mumbling two. They hardly cared anything about the grieving Ram(easily an 8) who just lost his wife to the dark evil Ravanan( a 5, at most a 6). The Kathakali performers bowed and left the makeshift stage. A few of the audience had come with bed-sheets to sleep on, which they spread over the floor and slept. Durga and Tejus left the koothambalam. It was 3 in the morning, the panchavadyam was over long back, and the temple grounds were deserted except for the footprints from the night. They decided to sit and talk for some more time before they went home. They sat at the west gate, on the black rock platforms on which people, and I, usually sit. It'll glisten ever so lightly in the moon, the oil from the lit lamps would mix with the dew and give a greasy coating to it. Durga started, 'Have you seen ''Begin Again?" Yeah? So, there's this scene in which they talk about how you can know so much about a person from their playlists.' Durga looked at Tejus intently, waiting. '...Oh, you wanna know my playlist? Okay cool, how about we play one song each from our playlists, alternatively. How's that?' 'Cool, works. You wanna start?' 'Yeah, sure.' Tejus started with 'Angela' by The Lumineers. They played Angela. I liked that song. Something about tree logging. 'Wasteland baby, by Hozier.' 'Okay,...Hero by Family of the year.' 'Coastline by Hollow Coves.' 'Cherathukal...?' ... Tinges of orange spread in the sky and suddenly there were rays of sunlight creeping in from behind the silhouette of the clock-tower. Savithri had started sweeping the stone pavements. She's a friend. We talk often about her grandkids. Pigeons stirred from under the clay-tiled roofs. Durga rubbed her eyes and took a few deep breaths of the cold morning air. She looked at Tejus sleeping on her calves, waited a moment, and then woke him up. A bit embarrassed by the drool on her salwaar he gave her an awkward smile. He lazily sat up. 'Oh, shit..! We're back in real-time.' 'Do you hear a Harpsichord playing? We can dance maybe,' She asks with an animated face of sarcasm. Tejus spurts out a laugh, 'It's funny you said that. I've always had this fantasy of having a sunrise-esque moment. You know, in some foreign city, walking around the streets - connecting with a person...Oh, and then I want the sequels too. I really love them, Jesse and Celine. They put everything good in those movies, and now, that's my scale, you know what I mean?' 'Yeah, I guess so. Yeah...But, you're gonna be disappointed my child. I don't think it ever works that way. Probably why the movie is special, right? I mean - you'll probably be perpetually disappointed in whatever you'd have - I guess...' 'Yeah...I guess. Anyways it'd be something I'd be looking for I guess.' Durga jumps down from the platform they were sitting on, 'well, this was close, right?' They shared a smile. They and I knew it was; the closest. The sand was cold - pleasant to walk on. They got a morning tea from the stall at the gate and decided to leave for their homes to sleep the day off. As they parted and Durga walked to her home, she looked down at her feet - there was a patch of grey on her skin - like a brushstroke. I watched on as the maroon at the ends of her hair glistened in the sun.

[momentumgo]

Andrea Schmitz

Motion Graphics Designer/Animator www.andreaschmitzzz.com New York City Age 27 She/Her

How did you get your start in motion design, animation, or whatever it is that you do?

I originally wanted to be a writer, and I faithfully wrote buckets of fanfiction and short stories up until the end of high school. I had actually planned on going to college for creative writing, but I was afraid of job prospects for fiction writing, and ended up going to Northwestern for film instead. Once I was there, it was clear to me that I hated film. For the first two years I felt like I was wasting time and money because I wasn’t learning anything that felt practical or interesting to me. It was also freezing in Chicago, and I quickly discovered that I hated filming on set (and I hated that most of the other film students only wanted to talk about film). Then, in 2012, I took the only animation class on campus, which taught puppeted character animation in AfterEffects. I was good at it, and it was fun, and so I decided to do that for the rest of my time there, along with sound design (because you could do both from a warm, snug bed).

I was one of three students interested in animation in my year, and one of three women killing it in sound design. I spent my time at school working project to project, designing opening credits for other film students’ web series, making a short animations for class, and sound designing other people’s short films. I tried to learn something new with each project, and eventually I worked with the animation teacher on an explainer series as an independent study in my third year. I also had two unpaid internships – one in Santa Monica making background screens for a 3D kids show, and one in my hometown of Little Rock where I did not do much actual work, but my supervisor gave me access to his Animation Mentor account so I could take some lessons. 

In my last year at Northwestern I was terrified that I was nowhere near ready for a job in motion graphics or animation, and I didn’t want to do another four years of school. Over my senior year winter break, I showed a former Disney/Nickelodeon animator who had recently moved to my hometown one of my old sketchbooks that I had on hand at the time, and he told me that I was four years behind everyone graduating from an art school that year. I went back to my car and cried. I had been trying so hard to make something from the limited resources for animation at my school, and I still had so far to go. I made a plan to do everything I could to make up that time as quickly as possible. 

This feedback triggered 3 years of panic-fueled creativity that I still have mixed feelings about because, although it kickstarted a creative growth spurt, it came from a place of fear, which affected the quality of the work. I took five classes that fall, blindly guessing pre-production for an animated short that I did not end up making in an independent study. Northwestern did not provide a 3D class, so I took the train once a week an hour south to take night classes in Maya at Columbia College on top of my regular workload (not for credit, because taking this six classes wouldn’t have been allowed by the school). Near the end of the year, I frantically applied to any and all jobs listed online, figuring that I would crash-course learn whatever I needed to and move wherever I had to to work. By the time school was ending, I had no job offers, but I had found a grad program that put equal emphasis on writing and art that felt just so me.

Two months before I graduated Northwestern, I applied and got into the MFA Visual Narrative program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. I left NU three weeks later to start the program, and flew back every weekend to wrap up classes, graduate, and move out. The MFAVN program functions as an on-campus high-volume program for June and July every summer for 3 summers, but is an online course during the 2 years in between, so you can attend grad school and hold down a job in another state at the same time. 

After leaving the first summer, I moved to Austin, and shortly after got a job making graphics for standardized tests. I couldn’t keep any work from this job for my portfolio since all of it was confidential, so sometimes it felt like I was making art all day and throwing it into a hole, but I learned vector illustration from that job. The next year, I moved to NYC for thesis year in order to be closer to the school and its resources, and worked 9am-2am every day for 6 months on a 10-minute frame by frame animation. By the time I left the MFAVN program I had three 5-10 minute animated shorts under my belt ( x, y, z ), but remained anxious about their quality because I had rushed all of them. I would try to fit huge concept projects into a tiny timeframe and overextended myself to reach my own goals. It took me a long time to physically and mentally recover after thesis, and the scale of the production did not achieve equal scale success. I learned a lot, but it took me a year to want to draw anything again.

It took me four months to find a job after graduating. I applied constantly – hours and hours each day searching and applying to anything that remotely sounded like what I did. I made short motion experiments in the meantime, and took CE classes at SVA. I ended up getting my first job – a paid internship – through networking on the Motion Design Slack. It was an internship with a pharmaceutical marketing company. I worked there for 6 months until it became clear they would not hire me full-time and I was very overextended. I got my next job, again, by talking to other motion designers, at New York Magazine as a motion designer. I had the opposite problem there, where I was free to do what I wanted when it came to explainer design, but I rarely had fully animated projects to work on, and had a lot of downtime. I made a lot of side projects during that time. A few months ago, after a year and a half at NYM, I got my latest job at Insider, where I do more character work than at any previous job and have similarly free reign over my explainer designs.

It’s only in the past two years that I’ve felt safe and secure enough to let the panic-fueled mania subside and start to focus on what I really want out of my career. I’ve started writing again, and exploring ways to introduce story back into my work. Although the ‘advice’ that I was four years behind lit a fire under my ass to work as hard as I possibly could to become a professional in the shortest amount of time, my work definitely suffered for it, and I think a positive reinforcement would have left me with a better mindset. Maybe then it would not have taken me so long to start thinking about what I really want out of my career. 

State your privilege – What circumstances may have helped or hindered you along the way? I come from a privileged background. I am very lucky to have two extremely supportive parents, and they encouraged me to go to whatever school I wanted and pursue whatever career I wanted as long as I could make it work. They paid for both schools, and I had no loans. After I graduated, I lived off of leftover college savings money until I made my own income. Financial security and unwavering trust, love, and encouragement from my family gave me the time and safety to discover what I wanted to do and the means with which to learn it.

What are some best practices you use today?

I diversify the projects I invest my time in. If I animate all day at work, I’ll read or write or draw on the train, and bake or write at home. I’ll always have several projects going on at once, but I delegate them to specific times and places that work around my schedule. This way when I work on them it doesn’t necessarily feel like work, because rather than a constant slog, each task feels fresher and easier to jump into.

How do you define success? What would success look like for you? My primary goal in life is to write and publish a book, and then to sit on the floor of a Barnes and Noble and read the book without buying it. It would make 12-year-old me proud, and that’s the only standard I hold myself to. 

Success in motion graphics to me is making a living and having enough time to comfortably make my personal projects on the side. Creating and animating stories is fun for me, but motion design is the job. I really want get into developing more narrative fiction animated work, but that’s going to be a long journey to make that a job.

How do you balance your work with your personal life? How do the two influence each other?

My boyfriend used to work odd hours, and now he goes to school in the evenings, and that’s greatly influenced my schedule. I try to get work done while he’s out of the house, and that way I can try to put my work down whenever he gets home so we can spend some time together. 

How have you learned to practice self-care? What do you do to take care of yourself? I’ve been trying to go on more walks to break up the work day at my fulltime job. I try to stretch my neck, hips, back, and and knees as often as I can (IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO START STRETCHING). I got an ergonomic mouse that changed my life. I try to take long breaks between the freelance projects I take on on the side. When I have a project assignment, I often feel like I have to get it done IMMEDIATELY, and will push myself into working long hours at nights and weekends to achieve that. If this is the way I’m going to keep working, the compromise is that I’m teaching myself that it’s ok to say no, and to not respond to the person looking for animation help that I am perfect for if I am not 100% up to it. I didn’t draw for about a year after I made my thesis film – I know now I need time to recharge.

What advice do you have for those just starting out?

Talk to people! I’ve learned so much from the women of the Motion Design Slack and the people of Punanimation! Make friends, let them know when you’re looking for a job! (Don’t make friends TO let them know you’re looking for a job, just make friends and hang out.) 

Make your projects! Don’t wait for validation! I wanted to make a short film post-grad but had no reason to make a short film, so I made Things Took a Turn so I’d have a reason to make a short film, and it held me accountable because then other people also had to make short films and I was in charge. Don’t do that exactly because that was an insane idea, but just know that you have the power to create opportunities for yourself!

Don’t panic! Make side projects because you want to, not because you feel like you’re competing against the world. Scale and volume can help you grow, but time and thought can help you stand out.

Find where nobody is doing the work and do the work! Aim to be different! If you think your work does not look like the work of someone else’s whom you admire, that’s okay. Lean into your differences! 

Explore other fields, you never know how different media could work together!

Avoid hero worship! Just because people make good art does not mean they would make a good mentor. Find your own standards and hold yourself to them.

#animation #motion design #motion graphics #panimation #aftereffects #motion #2D #3D #illustrator #motion designer #motion graphics artist #video journalist #career advice #creative director #art director #crunch #burnout #freelance #visual designer #designer #directory

[chloehenderson]

2019 was a mixed year for me. Fantastic ups, and melancholic lows; it really was the year of ups and downs, dips and peaks.

  My 2019 started with an epic high! I graduated from the Birmingham School of Jewellery with my Masters degree with Distinction in Jewellery & Related Products.

  In January, sadness hit the Henderson household when the best dog in the world voyaged over the rainbow bridge. Bailey you were the goodest boy and we miss you so much.

In March, we had a German adventure, and I achieved my first ever international exhibition! The Masters class of 2019 from the Birmingham School of Jewellery showed Oscillations Exhibition as part of Munich Jewellery Week 2019 and I was lucky enough to be able to screen my film The Chimera Artist to an international audience. I am so proud of this achievement, and while I have not pursued my Chimera work as much as I wanted this year, I am feeling re-invigorated by the new decade, and I am excited to put all the exciting plans that I have had stewing away in my mind for the past year into action… stay tuned…

The Chimera Artist also made an outing to the Out of the Blue Makers Marque later on in the year. It was here that more of the story was established, and The Filmmaker started to get active in his search for The Artist again… I think 2020 will see a lot more goopy blue infections…

  I tabled at my first ever zine fair this year! and then did it again a month later! I am getting more and more into zine culture, and the DIY art of making and documenting ideas, so it was really nice to take my little zines out into the world and meet like-minded folks at the Solid Gone Zine Fair and the Duplicate Publishing Fair. I hope to immerse myself more into the little world of the zine-makers in 2020, and will hopefully make a bunch of new zines too!!

  Poor mental health got in my way a lot this year, and it has only been towards the latter months of 2019 that I have started to actually try and deal with my own head instead of just ignoring things and muddling through life. I am plagued by both depression and anxiety, and when I look around at the state of our poor little planet, I feel it is only going to get worse… so, of course, I need to address my issues. I think my biggest issue is the thing I have titled The Overwhelm. I am easily overwhelmed, and knowing that fact really irritates me. I don’t want to be one of those people that is scared of everything, and never does anything because they just can’t even. I let things get on top of me so much that I can’t move, and I get nothing done… and I hate it. Giving my issue a name, and recognising what it is is the first step in trying to battle The Overwhelm. I know it will never really go away, but I just need to figure out my best fighting moves to achieve enough maximum damage points to make it bugger off for long enough for me to actually make art!! Saying all that, the art I did make this year, I am super proud of! I even managed to land a super fancy corporate commission for Leith Theatre, which was really great to work on. It’s hard to make it out there in the world as an artist, so little steps like this really are glorious achievements, and I need to make sure I don’t let the anxiety tell me otherwise. Here are some of my favourite illustrations from this year…

  A new year. A new decade. What will 2020 bring?

The first move in my battle against The Overwhelm was to write out a list of Goals to achieve in my 2020…

Keep on top of my mental health enough to achieve my goals and make more art! Seems simple enough when you add it to a list! but I think this will be the most tricky goal to achieve on my list. I am starting off my January with a positive mental attitude, and it is helping me to be productive… I can only hope that will continue throughout the year, and I can figure out strategies to conquer the dark spaces in my mind. Good vibes are appreciated!!!

Learn to Drive You know that anxiety thing I mentioned earlier?! Umm… yeah… well driving gives me LOADS OF ANXIETY. I actually hate it so much. However, I realise the importance of it to achieving some of my other goals, and it is therefore high up on my list. I am learning to drive in an automatic vehicle, because I never want to own a car that is not electric.

Move into our own Home In 2019, I moved back from Birmingham into my parent’s house with Stuart. We are attempting to establish ourselves with jobs in Edinburgh, and save up our wages, with the hopes to move into our own place in the not too distant future. I love my parents, and I am so grateful that they are letting us live here… but the two of us being couped up in my bedroom with all of our stuff is not overly conducive to art!

Achieve my first goal on Patreon I am $83 (£63.39) away from hitting my first goal on Patreon, but more importantly than the money, I want to get my Patreon community move involved in my process and I want to try and achieve a greater sense of engagement with my audience. If you like this blog, and can spare a few pennies, become my Patron for even more art love from me, including behind the scenes, sneak peeks, early access, gifts, and more!

Participate in 3 Markets/Fairs/Cons/etc. Pesky social anxiety stops me from getting out into the real world as often as I want to, but I really love attending events with my work. If you know of any cool art events coming up in the Edinburgh area (or I will happily travel a little further afield), please get in touch!

Get my work into an Exhibition The struggle is real. It is hard to get lucky breaks in the art world if you are an unknown artist… but all I can do is keep applying! Every month in my Patreon updates I talk about what opportunities I have a applied to, as well as my progress with them, with you can check out for less than the price of a cuppa brew each month when you become a Patron!

Create 25 finished Illustrations Ideally, I would like to create a lot more than that! but I have gone for a goal of two finished illustrations every month to give myself a fighting chance against The Overwhelm, but hopefully you will see a lot more doodling from me this year!

Make art everyday #ArtADay I am starting 2020 by setting myself this creative challenge of making art everyday. From full-scale illustrations, to a sketchbook doodle, or a cut and paste collage, to a little poem, or an abstract painting, to a ring made from glitter… and everything in between!! I want to get into the good habit of daily art practice, even if it is just a tiny sketch. I often fall prey to the big bad feeling of The Overwhelm, and it stops me from making art completely… so, I hope this challenge will help me to beat The Overwhelm, and get back to my most creative self! It’s 2020!! I need to starting living my best art life!!! Instagram Stories are an ideal place for me to document this, so do pop over to Instagram and hit the follow button to keep up with my progress on this challenge!

Make 3 Zines As I mentioned above, I am super excited by the zine world! and I want immerse myself more into zine culture… and the best way to do this is to make more zines!

Make Chimera film No.002 The Chimera Artist is coming. That is all. Stay tuned…

Create 25 new Jewellery Pieces They may be Chimera pieces, they may be little pieces that I have had in my head for a while, they may be a collection, the may be one-offs… but I have not made nearly enough jewellery this past decade, and I am going to rectify that starting this year!! A year of making is very much on the agenda!!!

Achieve 5,000 Blog Views + 1,000 total followers on Instagram and Twitter + 50 total YouTube Subscribers I try not to get too bothered my the social media numbers, but there are a few milestones I have really wanted to hit for a while, so I am going to make the push to get my numbers up this year! Help me out by following me on Instagram and Twitter and subscribing to my videos on YouTube, and if you haven’t already, please hit the follow button on the side of this blog to up my viewership here! All my love to you for this!!!

Make 25 YouTube Videos If I manage to achieve my goal of 25 finished illustrations, then this goal should be easy! as all I have to do is film, edit, and post my doodles in timelapse form!!

  Phew!!! That was a lot of reflecting, and a lot of looking into the future! Thank you if you read all of that, and got here! I reckon you deserve a cuppa… go and pop the kettle on! I have a lot to look forward to this coming year, and I am really excited to take this positive energy forward and getting making art! I hope you enjoying journeying on this art adventure with me, and I will leave you with a few of my festive photos from this Hollyday season as my final little reflection…

Much arty love, and a Happy New Year to you and yours 💙💙💙 Chloe out.

A new year. A new decade. What will 2020 bring? 2019 was a mixed year for me. Fantastic ups, and melancholic lows; it really was the year of ups and downs, dips and peaks.

#2019 #2020 #achievements #anxiety #art #artist #christmas #depression #failure #family #goals #inspiration #mental health #new year #reflections #success

[3dscatterplotmatplotlib-blog]

How to Offer and Plan Custom Sketches

Online cash settling on decisions commonly expect you to have some type of site, and have a type of expertise in promoting and on-line undertaking in any case. Notwithstanding, imagine a scenario where I educated you that there was a method to create benefits on-line using your current expressions and specialties abilities. For those who're included, perused on, because of we will look at Etsy, and how you can utilize your present expressions and artworks capacities to acknowledge cash on-line. What Is Etsy? Etsy, and diverse sites like it, is an electronic entrance that licenses individuals from the situating to list their unique expressions and specialties manifestations on the situating, include a value and dispatching costs, and elevate them to people far and wide. It is somewhat similar to eBay, other than that everything on it's carefully assembled by the general population who utilize the positioning. What Would you be able to Advance On Etsy? Almost anything that is handcrafted. People advance each seemingly insignificant detail from full estimated oil artistic creations convenient beaded gems, hand sewed infant garments and carefully assembled candles. From leatherwork to depict, chiseling to portraying, if it's specialties and artworks, you may advance it on the positioning. How Do You Make Cash? In difference to a few sites, Etsy does not take an expense off your deal. As a substitute, they allow clients to set up their specialties and artworks on the site, in their own 'store' for a little expense for each posting. You promote your items, put a value on them and encapsulate transport costs, and you get attention to the 1000's of individuals that utilization the site. It resembles a web make advertise, with considerably more visitors! Is It a Decent 3D Disseminate Plot Concept? You most likely have an interest that you as of now do, and that you'd wish to end up plainly productive on-line with, at that point Etsy is an incredible idea! It can give you significantly greater attention to substantially more people, and will even prompt you having the capacity to seek after your hobby full time, very than exclusively on ends of the week and during the evening time! As you'll have the capacity to see, as far as getting money on the web, and on-line business, it's not exclusively the actually skilled and the undertaking disapproved of that can benefit. Everyone, even individuals who like to work with their hands, can gain money on-line, and either begin or develop a present cash making concept. Sketches are nothing however free hand illustrations that comprises of numerous covering follows. For the most part portrays are valuable to record something for later utilize. Representations will help craftsman to build his creative ability power and allow him to create one thing advantageous inside the subject of work of art. Owing to cutting edge programming, these days on-line outlines are additionally potential. This is extremely staggering that people would specific be able to their considerations by making portrays using these product tools. Top-of-the-line computerized bundles for this sort of craftsmanship is Adobe Photoshop. In early days people have been using MS paint programming program, be that as it may it has less choices contrasted with Adobe Photoshop. You need to have PC in the event that you wish to make advanced representations. It's an exceptionally unmistakable method to make all the portrayals incredibly utilizing most recent programming and equipment on the pc. It likewise gives a superior picture quality at that point you've ever foreseen. 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[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | Q&A w/ THEO ELLSWORTH (Missoula, MT)

From DIY comics, art zines, animations, drawings to hand drawn woodcuts, artist Theo Ellsworth has doodled his way from childhood and high school to galleries and museums all over the world. One look at his body of works, you’ll find yourself drawn into a detailed, imaginative, stream-of-consciousness narrative realm, where strange creatures, surreal beings, and dreamy landscapes flow and blend into one another, with no beginning or end. Not only one thing, Theo also is the house artist for the London based electronic record label, Astral Industries, creating art for bands like Flying Lotus, Ramona Falls, and Algecow. Learn more about Theo Ellsworth’s art and what his early artistic influences are, what materials he loves to work with, and what he has coming for the rest of 2017.

Photographs courtesy of the artist

Introduce yourself?  Hello, I'm Theo Ellsworth. I draw a lot. Pretty much whenever I can. I live in Missoula, Montana.

My drawings take many forms: I make hand drawn woodcut art for galleries and museums, I also make comics and art zines. Sometimes I do large scale drawings on walls. I do illustration work of all kinds. I'm the house artist for the London based electronic record label, Astral Industries. I've also made album art for Flying Lotus, Ramona Falls, Skeleton Farm, and Algecow. I've been dabbling in animation and I'm currently excited to be learning woodblock printing. My work's been featured in Best American Comics, Cicada Magazine, The Treasury of Mini Comics, Smoke Signal, The Graphic Canon, and the upcoming book, America 2020.

When did you first get into drawing?  Was it a hobby turned career or something you knew from the start? I've loved drawing since I was a kid, but it was in high school that it really became an essential part of me. I started out just doodling a lot with straight sharpie on whatever piece of paper I had on hand. Something about just letting my hand run free to follow whatever shapes it wanted to make, really helped me relax my brain in this weird new way. It was never an absent minded kind of thing. It never felt I was spacing out. It felt more like the act of drawing helped me carve out a personal thinking space where I could concentrate and function more naturally. I got sent to the principal's office for drawing in class all the time in high school and I used to get bad grades in my high school art classes for not following the assignments correctly. Now, I feel lucky to be making a living making art. If I don't draw regularly, I get grumpy and hard to be around. Something about making art seems to keep me feeling intact and able to face the world.

Who were some of your early artistic influences? Reading comics and children’s books as a kid really had an impact on me. I always knew I wanted to make narrative work with my art.  When I discovered the world of self publishing, zines, and mini comics  at the Small Press Expo in San Francisco back in 2003, I realised that I could do it all myself. The first zine I ever printed was a series of drawings on receipts. I started a photocopied comics series called Capacity, which was eventually collected into a 335 page book published by the Brooklyn based small press, Secret Acres. My newest published book is a 128 page, wordless psychedelic horror comic called An Exorcism, published by the excellent Latvian small press, Kus Komikss.

What mediums do you love to work with? What are your essential art tools? I’ll use any kind of pen, but my favorite is the Rapidograph, which is a technical pen that can be refilled with india ink. I also love just drawing with cheap ballpoint pens.  I love to draw on folded paper. I like the idea of drawing on a sequence of pages as opposed to drawing on a single sheet of paper. The act of drawing becomes more of a thought process; a series of drawings that travel somewhere, as opposed to a single static image. Some of my folded paper notebooks have been reproduced as art zines, such as Logic Storm, Antidote, and Relax, We Have Alien Vehicles. These zines are probably fairly cryptic objects to any viewer expecting a narrative, but working on each one helped me navigate the time period they were drawn in. I carried them around with me and worked on each one a little at a time, until they were filled. I Like having an ongoing work like this in motion that I can take my time with and slowly build on. I like to draw on a folded paper size that can be easily reproduced on a photocopier and potentially made into an art zine and I draw on both sides of every page, so the zine is an exact reproduction of my notebook. Sometimes I only make a few copies or none at all of any given piece, but keeping that format keeps me locked into a sequence of pages that I have to work my way through.

Do you keep a sketchbook or work your ideas as you go along?  What type of sketchbook do you keep – disorganized chaos or neat and clean? Besides my folded paper drawing notebooks I keep, I don’t really keep a sketchbook. I don’t really do preliminary sketches of ideas for the most part. I always have this impulse to make everything a finished drawing.

What was the first show you ever exhibited in? What was your last show? My very first show was at a coffee shop called Butterfly Herbs in Missoula, MT. By most recent show was at Giant Robot in LA.

Where did you learn your knowledge of art or making art? Art School or Self taught.  For the most part, I'm self taught, though I'm currently learning woodblock printing from an incredibly print maker named David Miles Lusk and I've been learning a lot of great animation tips from my friend Stefan Gruber, who's a genius animator.

Describe your artistic process for us. It’s all pretty stream of conscious. It might be easiest to describe my process with my woodcuts. I started making the woodcut art, originally because I got tired of framing work for shows and wanted by gallery work to be something that felt really different from my illustration work. I got a scroll saw and started cutting out shapes in hard-wood plywood, drawing on them, then coating them in varnish.  I’ll go into my little woodshop in my garage and draw out as many shapes as possible on a big piece of plywood and cut out a whole pile of them, so I have a nice stack to work on. I never completely know what they’re going to look like until I’m working on. They just start out as these vague person, animal, or house shapes,and it’s a true joy to sit with each one and discover the details. I do a yearly solo show of my woodcut pieces at Giant Robot in Los Angeles that I usually make at least 75 new pieces for. I had a show there this past June. Right now I have 3 pieces in a group show at Grumpy Bert in Brooklyn, NY and 9 new pieces are about to go to a show at Radius Gallery in Missoula, MT.

What makes you smile when viewing art? What is it you’re looking at – composition, color, line? I'm inspired by all kinds of work. I love outsider art and folk art. I love weird art comics, but I also still have a huge love for 60s, 70s, and 80s superhero comics. I love ancient art and textures and patterns in nature. Any art that really feels like it was made from an inner artistic impulse usually ends up getting me excited and inspired. I love art that feels a bit crude or awkward but full of feeling and personal expression. That kind of art does way more for me than something super polished and calculated. I love children's art and I collaborate with my 2 young kids whenever I can.

What’s a common misconception about artists? I don’t think many people really understand the focus and effort that goes into a single work of art. I love having a studio that I can ride my bike to, close the door and have periods of time where I'm totally immersed with no distractions. I also like sitting up after everyone in my family has gone to bed and working on my zines or woodcuts. I get significantly less sleep than everyone else in my family, but making use of that quiet time is so essential. The most valuable thing to me about making art is simply the experience of focus and concentration; the satisfaction of putting care into something. The journey of following a vague impulse until something tangible and often unexpected has come into existence. It sort of feels like developing a photograph of something from my subconscious, like I'm actively engaging with something mysterious and beyond my understanding.

Do you have a favorite artist(s) that does a completely different medium than yourself? Oh yeah! I have a huge love for art environments. One of my favorites is Le Palais Ideal in France, made by Ferdinand Cheval. He was a Postman in the late 1800s who built a complex and beautiful homemade structure on his land. He had no prior experience with architecture. He simply followed this mysterious artistic impulse and made something startling and unique. There’s nothing else like it.

What are your favorite Vans? I like it when people draw on them and add personal touches.

How are you not just ONE thing? Everything I do feels like it’s part of the same world and comes from that same initial creative impulse, but I definitely need that variety of approaches and focuses. It keeps me inspired and seeing things from new and different angles..

What’s on the horizon for the rest of 2017? Right now, I'm working on a new series of folded paper notebooks called Thrill Mouth. It's more of a pure comic book, inner-space explorer adventure series drawn in ball point pen. I printed some copies of the first issue a few weeks back. Some of the copies have hand drawn glitter gel pen details on the covers. I usually can't stop myself from getting labor intensive and ridiculous with anything I make. I've been making zines and mini comics for about 15 years. It actually was relief when a publisher first contacted me, wanting to put out a book, and I love working with the publishers I've been lucky enough to work with so far, but making these little self published art booklets is an important personal practice and I always try to have one in the works.  I’m also working on a graphic Novel with author Jeff VanderMeer.

Follow Theo Ellsworth

Website | http://thoughtcloudfactory.com Instagram | @theoellsworth Etsy |  https://www.etsy.com/shop/theoellsworth Tumblr | http://theoellsworth.tumblr.com

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