Leuchtturm1917 I love your books!!!

I love these little black books. 

This is my second one of these tiny sketch books and I am already needing a new one soon!

They are so small and discreet that I can take them anywhere and literally put them in my pocket. 

This one is Life Saver 2016 - 2017.

The reason I call them 'life savers' is because they actually do save my a** sometimes.

All my notes, phone numbers and ideas get jotted down in them.

Inspired: Roman Muradov

I 've recently stumbled across Muradov's work through Instagram and fell head over heels in love with his work. From his fluid lines to his bold shapes and fantastic characters, there were so many things I've always wanted to try out. I couldn't help imaging how wonderful it would be to see his images animated, with all the layers moving past each other and the fluid lines swimming around the colours. 

So I had ago at experimenting, playing with bold colours, bold shapes and fluid lines.

I loved the way the brush drying out actually made her hair look.

All the bold colours and fast lines came out to play!

As you can see I ended up favouring the primary colours.

It was my first time ever using gouache which made things a lot more fun!

Discovering the new and the old

I was reading an article in the Animation Magazine about the recent Annecy Film festival for this year and found out about lots of new animators, directors and animations shorts. Blind Vaysha by Theodore Usher in particular really stood out to me. Not only was I drawn to the old Bulgarian tale but also I loved the traditional style of the animation. What I thought at first must have been beautifully and painstakingly carved out by hand was actually done with a Wacom Cintiq tablet. I thought that was genius! Bringing the charm of the past into the present by mimicking traditional linocut techniques using digital drawings.

Screen shots from Blind Vaysha

While watching a couple other short animation films online, I also came across Hipopotamy (2014) and Franz Kafka (1992) by Piotr Dumala which reminded me a little of Blind Vaysha. There were similarities I could see in the layering and the marks of the images. However, Dumala actually does carve the images by hand and animates the movements by scratching fine details on to plasterboards with a needle.
Hipopotamy is definitely not a 'feel good' short animation. While I think most of Dumala's animations tend to have a ominous feel about them, Hipopotamy is truly haunting.

I still can't get over how amazing it is how effective short animations can be at getting under your skin or getting you to feel so much in such little time.

The animation was based on a nature film on hippos.

I think the repetition in the film and the reusing the same character for both genders somehow strangely dehumanises them. 

Very strange and very mesmerising to watch.

Anxiety and cars

Scruffy as hell.

Based on my sisters personal description.

Giving a visual voice to silenced pain

My sister and I were in having one of our nice long evening talks last night.

We started reflecting on our experiences in high school and how they affected us.

This brought us to the conversation about anxiety, body dysmorphia and insecurities.

Something that a lot of us have either experienced or heard of but never really truly acknowledged by society as a 'real problem'.

Someone breaks their arm, it is attended to, wrapped up and it is indisputable that they cant use that arm for a while.

However, if someone has anxiety for example, they are often told to 'snap out of it' or questioned about whether or not they are trying hard enough. 

Why is it not treated like a a broken arm? 

Why aren't they being attended to, treated and being taken seriously?

I was one of those people who didn't take the problem seriously, even when it was my sister crying out in pain.

What I think became a barrier for believing that my sisters struggle was real was that I didn't understand.

I just couldn't comprehend it.

It was happening in her head and all I could see was a small piece of a bigger internal battle through her words.

With a broken arm, you see it then and there.

You know what physical pain feels like so it's a lot easier to relate to.

Maybe be there is something I can do to help people empathise and understand mental disabilities/illnesses. PIXAR's Inside Out personified representations of emotions in the human body was a perfect start in feature animation films in getting people to talk.

Holiday doodles

Character designing

For the pure fun of it.

Say hello to the Famous Five.

(Yes, I know, very original name ;P )