This weekend I’ll be catching up on my Blog. This past week I’ve been bogged down with lots of deadlines for my art classes, and that takes priority. I turned in my Midterm drawing portfolio yesterday, and I’ve got 3 paintings to work on that are due on the 30th. I’m going to be working with my friend, Matt Brinkley, today. He’s going to be my model for one of these portrait paintings. I’m really excited about that. He has some nice skin tones that I’d like to capture. On Saturday morning, I’ll be painting Sabrina Andrews’ portrait again, or rather, I’ll be completing the second portrait painting that I’ve done of her.  She is my favorite model so far. Hopefully this weekend, I’ll add some more stuff to my Daily Doodle, and finish up the little bit of animation that I’ve been working on recently so I can post that up here as well.

Also, check out this rather humorous short animation that captures my exact thoughts on social networking websites.

Tootles for now.

I’ve been planning a trip to go see both sets of grandparents this summer. My mother’s parents live in Florida, and my father’s live in New York. I live in North Carolina. I found a flight on Expedia that was very cheap. It would be a three flight trip. A flight from NC to FL, and I’d stay there for a few weeks. Then a flight from FL to NY, and I’d stay there for a few weeks. Then I’d be headed from NY to NC to come back home. I’m trying to plan out the trip to begin in mid May, and I’d return at the end of June. The purpose of my trip would be of course to spend time with my aging grandparents. Their health is beginning to fail, as well as their memories. I’d really like to spend time with them this summer, before I get my apartment. Otherwise, I may not get the chance to do this again for a long time, and I don’t want it to be too late. I hate that we live so far away from family. I like North Carolina (except this crazy weather lately), but it would have been nice to have grown up seeing relatives on a regular basis. While I’m with my grandparents this summer, I really want to focus on shooting plenty of portrait shots of them, doing drawings of them, and even starting a few portrait paintings. I’d also like to do some landscape stuff while I’m there, especially New York. In Florida, I’d like to concentrate on nature; my grandmother in Florida has a parrot that would make a good subject. All of this means I’ll have to pack wisely. I may pay extra to take on extra luggage so I’ll have my necessary art supplies. I think that this would be something very sentimental for me years later as I look back at the artwork I would do this summer and remember my grandparents. I think it’ll be beautiful. I was perusing through the Wet Canvas website and found an article written by Annie Howell Adams called “the Traveling Oil Painter.” Her article had a lot of helpful information as to how to pack for such a trip with artwork in mind. I’m going to take some of her suggestions. Right now I need to call my relatives so I can pinpoint the exact dates that would be best for me to fly out. I don’t want to get stuck at the airport!

I’m revisiting a fourteen year old project of mine. Yes, that means that I started this project when I was seven. I posted up two sketches of this project in my Daily Doodle if you want a sneak peak. This project is forcing me to learn how to use Photoshop. Oh the horrors of conformity! Oh well, I suppose I had to learn sometime. I’ve been told that now a days you can’t be an artist without knowing how to use this modern tool. I disagree with that statement, but I’m sure it is true if you want to be a paid artist. Which, eventually, I wouldn’t mind making a living off of my art, so we’ll see where this goes. I was hoping to be finished with the mock presentation of this old project. However, after looking at it from an artistic stand point, it is best I with hold and try again. I did learn a lot about PS, but I need to integrate a little design know-how and common sense. So expect a posting about this again, hopefully soon. Also, I started figeting with Toon Boom again. I did a little animation last night. All of it got trashed, but I’m just trying to get into the groove of it again. I think I need to go back to doing the tutorial exercises. Actually, it’s not I think I need to, it’s I know that I need to.

For any of you who might read this on a somewhat regular basis, you’ll notice that I’ve made a lot of changes. I have a new, nifty theme, with a digital painting of mine as the custom header. I even added new pages. I only had one page before, and that was my About Me section. I added a page for my artwork, and a page for my animation. This way my readers wont have to scroll down my blog to see this stuff sporadically. All you have to do is click on my simple page link. I’ve also added a page for a Daily Doodle. This will hopefully encourage me to post on my blog more regularly because I am obligating myself to submit at least one daily doodle. I am also obligating myself to submit at least one animation per week. So please stay tuned!

This is a post that I should have written two weeks ago. I’m sorry that it is late.

So two weeks ago a lovely package arrived for me at my home. It contents are listed as followed: a Kami doll (Goody!), another Kami doll (Oh wow! Two!), a CD of Sesame Street music from around the world, a Sesame Street mouse pad, the Sesame Workshop annual report, a Sesame Street daily planner that has pictures of their muppets from around the world interacting with children (It had beautiful photography in it), the business card of the nice fellow from Sesame who sent me the lovely package, and wait…what is this? Oh wow! At the bottom of that is a third Kami doll!!! Wow! (I am trying to recreate the excitement I felt when I first opened the package. Is it working?)

‘Did you know that when you purchase Sesame Street products, you are supporting the education of children at home and around the world?’ That is a paraphrase that can be read on the tags of Sesame Street products, including my Kami dolls. Personally, I would like to see this doll being marketed. Marketing this doll could be used not only for the furthering of children’s education, but also towards AIDS research studies, even possibly towards providing medical attention to children in South Africa who have HIV. Kami is UNICEF’s Champion for Children, so I think there could be a lot of options. Call me ambitious, but that is my opinion anyway. I’m sure though that the good people at Sesame are already doing plenty of things like this. I just hope that in the next year or so we may begin to see Kami, and other muppets from around the world, being sold in doll form on their website. I’d like to think that people are interested in the show in other countries. Every show is produced with their native viewers in mind, in order to make it the most beneficial for their young viewers.

If you’re not sure who Kami is, please refer to this earlier post.

Thank you again to those who sent this to me. I greatly appreciate it.

I had quite an exciting (and tiring) day today! It sort of started late last night though, and into the wee hours of this morning. This is when I began two portrait paintings of Sabrina Andrews. One of the paintings is basically finished. It just needs a few more finishing touches. That one is a palette knife painting. This was my first time doing one of those. It was very difficult. I like the finished look thought. It is just very different from my normal style. After that I did another portrait painting of Sabrina. This time with my style. I’ve consulted with my Drawing and Painting instructor, Susanne Thomas, on both of these paintings. She gave some really good suggestions for my palette knife painting, but kind of left the other painting open ended. I do know that our next painting project will be to mimic Lucian Freud. I think that will be a good learning exercise, especially when dealing with skin tones in a compositional matter. I believe this will be how I treat this second painting that I began last night. I think I’m going to do some more mixing with my paints to create more contrasting colors for the shadows. I would also like to experiment with using the Payne’s Gray color with the skin tones to create that bluey shadow effect. Once I get my camera, I’ll be posting up pictures of these.

From ten to eleven-thirty this morning I attended a lecture by Kyle T. Webster. He graduated from UNCG’s Art program in 1998. He is a pretty well known illustrator and graphic designer. His talk was very encouraging. He told us to use the resources we have right now while we are attending the University, and he also gave us some tips on preparing ourselves for our careers. It was really encouraging. He also gave us the names of a few artists online that he particularly enjoys. I’ve added a few of these to my blog roll to the left. I’ve re-categorized my  blog roll to make it more efficient. Anyways, back to the lecture. I felt that it gave me hope that after I graduate from UNCG I do have a chance to make something of myself. I really want to push myself to fulfill my dreams. I’ve decided that I need to go talk to the people in the Film Department at my school. I want to add a minor in Film. I believe this will help me achieve my goal towards a career in animation. I’ve also decided that I need to push myself to work on my animation. I’ll be working on some animation exercises over the weekend. I’ll post any that I complete on here.

I’ve also been putting thought towards a specific career goal. Namely, that I’d like to pursue a career in the production of an animated educational program for children. Which brings me to this evening when I returned home from school. I checked my e-mail as part of my usual routine. I found an e-mail thats subject line was, “Kami.” This immediately made me think that it was the contact I made at SABC. However, it was instead an employee of the Sesame Workshop in New York that had been forwarded my blog and my e-mail address from one of his colleagues. How exciting! FYI: this is the first professional contact that I have made without my own solicitation. It was a very nice letter. He thanked me for my positive postings on Kami and discussed the importance of her character for children in South Africa. He also brought to my attention that just yesterday there was a press release stating that the Sesame Workshop will be using Kami and Big Bird in an educational campaign in Nigeria. Look at that! Kami is moving on up! You can read about that here. Maybe she’ll be here in the U.S. in the next couple of years. Another exciting element of this letter, was that this Sesame Workshop employee has offered to send me some ‘Sesame goodies’ my way. That is very exciting and greatly appreciated!

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Now, as a matter of introduction, I am happy to say that my dear friend, Nathan Lee, has joined the WordPress community. I’m glad that some of my friends are now opening up to the idea of blogging. I am hoping that now that I have a few friends within the community that it will push me to keep up with my own blog on a more regular basis. Nathan has been a friend of mine since Middle School. He has always been one of the best artists and writers that I have ever known. He told me that he plans on using his WordPress to post up photos of his artwork as well as the stories that he writes. He is a very clever and witty author and artist. He is the person that I turned to when I was attempting to work out the kinks to the plot for my animated short, which is being put on hold for the time being unfortunately. I am very eager to see what he shall be posting on his blog, ‘Kill the Jester.’ He’s already made it quite personal with a nice photograph that he edited containing our friend, Pierce. This is something that I would definitely keep an eye on. He told me that he’ll be adding his older stories onto his blog. Be on the lookout for the ‘Shoe Family’ story. It has always been a favorite of mine.

I hate that I haven’t been keeping up with this thing regularly. For one, it is because I haven’t done anything with my animation recently, and then also because nothing interesting has happened. For the sake of writing something on here I’ll just catch you up on my life and my art.

This semester I started off taking 18 hours worth of classes (6 classes), and I’ve dwindled it down to the minimum of 12 hours (4 classes). It makes me feel pathetic, but the workload that I have for these classes were pretty heavy. I didn’t want to jeopardize my grades because I got overwhelmed. So I got rid of my Spanish class and unfortunately my advanced American Art History class. I’m still taking two studio courses: Painting 1 and Intermediate Drawing. I have my Ancient Art History class that I love, and I am taking a Math class that isn’t so difficult. As far as my studio courses are going, we’ve been doing portraitures in my drawing class and a monochromatic painting in my painting class. I must say that I’m not too happy with my painting. It is of a simple still life, but I can’t seem to get it right. I believe it hurts my pride. I know that I can paint, but I don’t think this piece will best show my abilities. I think it is because I greatly dislike still life, especially when it is monochromatic. It is so drab and boring. I am beginning to hate the color blue. I should have chosen a color that I already disliked.

I am still waiting for my Kami doll to come in the mail. I feel like she should have been here already since it has been over a month since I got the e-mail from the ladies at SABC saying that she has been mailed off. Maybe international deliveries take longer than I anticipated.

Unfortunately I haven’t been working on my animation. There hasn’t been much time since school has started. I also have yet to see the much anticipated Coraline film. I’ve been looking forward to that. I am hoping that sometime this week I will get to see it. I really want to see the tribute that was made in the film to Joe Ranft. I thought that was a really sweet thing to do for our Joe. I am hoping that once I see Coraline that I will be inspired to work on my animation and make the time to work on it. One thing that I have seen in the last few weeks that has inspired me to pursue animation is the Oren Lavie’s stop motion video for his ‘Her Morning Elegance’ song. It is a video that I cannot get tired of watching.

I’ve been talking to my photographer friend, John Read, about getting a camera. We’ve decided that for what I want to use a camera for that a Canon Rebel XS would be the best purchase for me to make. We’re also interested in the concept of doing a stop motion film similar to Oren Lavie’s, except with our own original story. I think that a project like that would definitely help my animation endeavors. I think using the actual human body in making a stop motion film would teach me a lot about the way the body moves and also help me get the walk right. I’ll let you know if we ever do start that project. However, I’ll be purchasing my Rebel this week. It makes me so excited. I’ve been wanting to dabble with photography for a very long time, and I’ve also been needing a camera to document my new artwork. There is a large gap of documentation between my works. I’d like to fill that in.

Look out for my friend, Nathan Lee, he said that he’d be making his own WordPress Blog soon. I’ll be providing the link in my blogroll as soon as he does.

Just one last thing, I found an odd little short on YouTube. It is a little Valentine’s Day animation. I thought it was animated very well. The subject matter is just a little odd. Please don’t think of me as being “too weird” for posting this.

Yesterday was the start of classes at UNCG. It also snowed yesterday. We only had a two hour delay. I thought it was going to stick so I brought my sled with me to school. By the time I finished my classes most of the snow had already melted. Today was the first day at Heather Holian’s Ancient Art History class. I think it’s going to be enjoyable. I’ve even got a few people that are my friends in that class that will make good study buddies. Tomorrow I’ll go to my American Art History class for the first time. It is the only class I haven’t been to yet because it got canceled due to the snow. I hope that goes well. I registered for the wrong Spanish class. I’m supposed to be in a higher level, and the Spanish classes that I’m supposed to be in are all full. I e-mailed two of the professors that teach that class to see if they’ll sign me into their class. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully they will. I’m taking 18 hours, but once I drop the Spanish I’ll be down to 15 hours. Which is still plenty, but I really wanted to try out 18 hours of school. Susanne Thomas was my Drawing Fundamentals (basically Drawing 1) professor last semester. I was more advanced than most of the class. This semester I have her for Intermediate Drawing (kinda like Drawing 2) and also for Painting 1. She was surprised to see me for both of these classes. I hope she doesn’t mind, and I hope she doesn’t find me pretentious. I’m not really at all. It’s just frustrating for me when I know how to do a lot more than my fellow classmates. Damn, I really do sound pretentious though. Well, I can’t help it that I had an amazing art teacher in High School (Doug Collins). I realize now how advanced his class was in comparison to most kids who took art in High School. The last class I haven’t mentioned is Math. It looks easy enough. I just hope we skip factoring. Yeeeechhh…

I do have one bit of really great news. Two days ago, during the early morning hours of President Obama’s inauguration, I received an e-mail confirming that my Kami doll has been sent to America. That is pretty exciting. I’ll let you all know when she arrives.

Oh and I deleted my Facebook again. I was spending too much time on it. I need that time for school and personal goals. It was also causing me unnecessary stress. Which brings me to this next point. If any of my readers or my friends that were on my Facebook wish to contact me, please e-mail me at: sipintad@uncg.edu.

I’m expecting a lot of great things to come out of this semester as far as my knowledge of art history and also my painting skills. I really need some more practice with the application of color. I’ve got it down pat with the fast drying acrylics, and I do know (and love) to paint with oils. I just need the practice. It’s been years since I’ve taken an actual painting class. All this time I’ve been doing it out of my own initiative.

Also, I am considering buying a Canon Rebel. I’d like to get into photography. Nothing too major. It’s just an itch that I need to scratch. Besides, I think that all self-respecting artists should have a decent camera. It’s just practical. Essential almost. I may just be making these excuses up for the sake of the fact that I want one.

Sorry I’m so dry this evening.

Ho hum.

UPDATE: In this post I said that I deleted my Facebook, however the following day I reactivated. So much for that. So I’ll still be on there, but feel free to still send me an e-mail if you’d like.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’ve been attempting to keep this blog up on a regular basis, but I just didn’t have much to say for the last week or so. However, I have plenty to say now! To begin I had a nice, hour long conversation with Elliot Cowan of “the Stressful Advenures of Boxhead & Roundhead” series on Facebook chat. He was very personable, as usual, and he also encouraged me to ask him animation questions. I pointed him to a little animation ditty that I did for practice. It’s actually the longest thing that I have animated. He told me that it was very expressive, but that my timing was terrible. Which made me laugh because that is quite true. It is featured below so you can see for yourself. I’m not discouraged though, because attaining good timing comes with lots and lots of practice.

Elliot and I also discussed hand drawn animation with cels verses animating with the use of a computer, in my case Toon Boom. He encouraged me to learn how to use the tools that I have, which would be Photoshop, Flash, and of course Toon Boom. He said that it was necessary if I were to ever want to be employed in the animation industry. Which is very true, and I have been trying to teach myself these tools. My goodness I am so old fashioned when it comes to art! He also told me that animating with cels would be very, very expensive. Being a college student, that is way beyond my budget. So I’ll continue to learn using the tools I have available on the computer. He did tell me of one method of doing hand drawn animation. He told me that I could animate on paper and scan each picture into my computer. Then I could go in and photoshop the color and effects. It all sounds so complicated, and I want to try it all! However, I’m going to stick to the basics for now. I still have to get comfortable with the walk! My hope is still that one day I’ll get to make the film of my dreams doing traditional, hand drawn animation on cels, but that’ll be a while from now.

I was figeting with this earlier today. Again, it is pretty short, and YouTube seems to fasten the pace. Either way it is still a pretty short animation, but I see it as progress. Enjoy!

I received an e-mail back from the lady that I contacted yesterday. She told me that there were Kami dolls at the festival, but they do not have any for sale. Then she told me that she would e-mail some of her colleagues to see if there were any Kami dolls “laying around” and if there was a possibility of sending me one. I then received an e-mail from one of her colleagues asking for my delivery address. So it looks like my wish will come true!! I am so excited. I’ll write more about the matter once I get more information.

Wish me luck!

Also, I have been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life in terms of a career once I finish college. I know I want to animate. I am already getting my degree in education. I may be going to graduate school for art education. Again I want to animate. Hmmm…I think this is pointing towards me producing my own children’s educational programs. What do you think? Personally, I like the sound of it.