Catalogues

So I just got the new CalArts grad catalogue for Film, which includes info on the character animation program, and experimental animation program, both of which I am very interested in. Not much information on courses in the books, but lots of lists. These are the professors. These are some alumni. Ooh, look, pretty! Not much for student work, i.e. stills.

Ah, the age of computers. Guess I have to do the internet shuffle to look at my schools in more depth.

The other day, when I told my mom, that I wanted to go back to school for an MFA, she said, "Why? Wasn't that RISD's job to prepare you to go out into the world and make a living making art?"

You see, I am an art educator, not a full time artist. And I know deep down, somewhere, my mom wanted me to be "bigger" than that. I know that she's proud of me, but she did say, when I was accepted into the MAT program, "Oh, that's great, just your father and I had such higher hopes for your future." I know she's proud, don't get me wrong, teachers, in her eyes are pretty close to the top of the totem pole.

Anyways.

RISD, you didn't fail me.
RISD, you sent me out into the world to be me.
To take risks, chances, and to put more creativity, communication design and art into this world.

Every day I teach 200 kids how to communicate with art.

Every year I teach 800 kids how to see, write about, think about, and create art.

I think that's pretty rad.

Sure, I want to make more art for a living. Sure, I want to have a career where I go to work, to make art.

But damn, there's something amazing about having 34 12-year-olds all MAKING stuff.

There's an energy in a classroom, working on a project, it's like sitting under high wires with head gear, I think, it hums.

And I love it.

So, you see, RISD, I'm in no way not on the path I want to be. I just took a detour to Nevada, to work at a school I love working at, with kids that need me maybe almost as much as I need them.

I love detours.

new Urt.

Color, color, everywhere.

With the start of the school year I have remembered how much a a procrastinator I am. *sigh*

Hey, at least I've decided I want to go back to school.
Hey, at least I've decided I want to make art for a living.
BTW, I am going to work to do colorscripting. :P

Holy cow, I'm out of practice. So. I have decided to create a color sequence of images for a story, as if I were working on a film project.

So far I have determined the story, it is Froggy Went a Courtin' as sung by Bruce Springsteen on his album We Shall Overcome, the Seeger Sessions. I will be using a Sierra Nevada Mining Culture theme. All the animals will be representations of the fauna found here in Sierra Nevada.

This is my assignment for myself.

This week, my agenda is:
Monday: Design Froggies
Tuesday: Design Miss Mouse
Wednesday: Draw the layout of the community of Froggy and Miss Mouse.
Thursday: Research Mining towns, ghost towns and Tonopah.
Friday: Sketch Mining Equipment and Miners.

I will try to post as often as I can.

website up and a-running!

SQUIDARTME!

click above to see the new site!

wow. about time I updated the portfolio site!!! woo haa!!
Please drop me a line and tell me what you think. I sat down to relearn the new flash in CS3.. then to try dreamweaver. Yeah, so I made it in Iweb.

I love my Mac.

a little comic

made for the random words art challuunge blog.
You can join in the fun here: http://randomwordsartchalluunge.blogspot.com/

Quillow!

I spent 5 days making this quillow that folds into a peace pillow from a blanket sized quilt.

1 year mark....set....wait?...GO!

So, we are 1 year into the 3 year plan to get up and out of Nevada and back to making art full time. it's not that I don't enjoy teaching, it's just that I want to be able to do it as a side thing, instead of the main thing.
So, I have been instructed to decide exactly what it is I want to do with my life.

Now, I find this to be a very daunting question.
So I started going back into the annals of my life to try and figure it out.

Wow, that was interesting.
I am going to be painting each day. Because I've realized/decided that what I love is color.
So, for now we're going to go with that. Whew.
Two years to get up onto feet that haven't held me since my senior year of undergrad, that's a little scary.
But nothing's worth doing unless it's a little scary... right?..

I LIED.

Here are some more.

Drawrin' Class

Here's a few, I'll post more laters.;)

Octopus.

Here is a painting. I think the photo is kind of bad, but, I really wanted to post it, and didn't have the patience to have A help me with his mad photo skillz, because he was at work. sigh. oh well.
It's gouache.

Our new neighbors

A young pair of Great Horned Owls.
We hear them at night calling to each other, and this is a rather blurred image of one on top of our local half-pine tree.