New beginning new blog!

I HAVE MOVED HERE!

Sarah Mazzetti

Sarah Mazzetti is an Italian Illustrator who not only makes beautifully colourful illustrations but also charming pencil drawings! 

(Been quite ill lately so apologies for the lack of posts)

New project roughs

I am working on a new project for a film competition. The film needs to be about something you love so I chose to do it on yoga. I have to actually be in the film so my friend Theo filmed myself and my yoga teacher friend Anna doing some asanas. The idea is to draw on the footage to show the 'hidden' side of the asanas (what is happening inside your body and mind) which is often disregarded and yoga is seen as a sport. 

Shooting in a studio and directing people proved to be quite tricky and I found myself a bit unorganised so next time I will make sure I am prepared!

Rhythmanalysis 1st project

Every Thursday at college I have this class called Rhythmanalysis. For our current project we had to go to the Tate Modern and record people and sounds and then create some kind of video, animation or sound piece with the material we recorded which explores rhythms.

I recorded some performers singing in the turbine hall at the museum and I am working on this video based on their singing. I am masking out shapes from the footage I got in After Effects and then synchronizing the shapes with the music. It is a bit like a screensaver like my classmate Zuzanna said to describe this kind of projects. We have a crit tomorrow so I am looking forward to getting some feedback from the tutors. 

I guess you could call the visuals in raves Rhythmanalysis? This clip on Infected Mushroom's website makes me feel strangely overwhelmed and excited.

Carnival by Susan Young

Beautifully animated  movement! Susan Young is currently an animation Research student at the RCA.

Headspace, Get some

Getsomeheadspace.com is a website encouraging people to start and maintain practising meditation. It has beautiful graphics and is especially designed for people with busy lifestyles. I am particularly interested in the fact that they made meditation (which, is something people often consider very 'deep' and impossible to understand) fun and easily accesible. Headspace had pretty amazing reviews from The New York Times as well as The Guardian and a lot of other major publications.

Oliver Jeffers Illustration

See more of Oliver Jeffer's beautiful, lively and fresh Illustrations here.

'I like yoga' research

Doing some research for a new project! I am getting a bit too excited and anxious about it. Will reveal more soon.

Ultra Seven powers

So pleased I discovered this video on youtube. I love what this guy did with the Kinect. I wish I had the knowledge to do this...it looks fun!

Mars by Joe Bichard and Jack Cunningham

One of my amazing classmates at the RCA did this animation in collaboration with another amazing classmate of ours from Foundation course in Brighton. I discovered it on Vimeo some time ago and was thrilled to realise that I know the creators! Great concept and visuals!

Revolver by Jonas Odell

Just finished a group sound project at the RCA. Our teacher showed us this great animation. I like this description I found on youtube 'Looped animations by Jonas Odell of FilmTecknarna. Genius.
Co-directed with Stig Bergkvist, Marti Ekstrand & Lars Olsson'

It'sNiceThat feature

It'snicethat.com is one of my favourite art blogs ever and I'm so happy that I was chosen to be the new Student Of The Month! You can read a short interview and see some of my illustrations here. What a great way to start the academic year :)

Brecht Evens

Beautiful Illustration by illustrator Brech Evens. I don't know what it is about...the only info I can find is 'DE ORIGINELE TEKEKING VOOR DE ANTWERPSE STRIPMUUR) which I don't know what it means. Visit Brecht's blog here.

A Tale of A Sickly Whale

Beautiful animation by my classmate Zuzanna Weiss and Rosanna Wan made for BBC Radio series 'Short Cuts'.

Learning about storyboards

So the first week of the Animation course at the RCA is over and I finally had some time over the weekend to realise what happened. Apart from inductions and welcome talks we had to work on a rather fast paced project which involved drawing storyboards and characters in twenty seconds or a minute(if we were lucky). I found it particularly challenging since I spend quite a long time on my illustrations and have no knowledge of camera angles, pacing etc. This is a scan of 'The Storyboard Design course', an incredibly useful book by Giuseppe Cristiano which is my first introduction to film language.

So I learned a lot and switched from drawing faded pencilpen lines to attacking the paper with a 4B pencil. I suddenly became aware of the fact that I haven't done any observational drawing in a very long time. So I got a sketchbook just for observational drawing and will do as much drawing as possible. Needless to say I am definitely not proud of most of the drawings I have done so far in my sketchbook haha.

So I am a student again!

It is exciting going back to University!  These last couple of days have been very stimulating but exhausting at the same time.

Yesterday we watched a screening of Chris Sullivan's Consuming Spirits. My favourite bits from the film where these very expressive hand drawn scenes. Unfortunately I can not embed the trailer from Vimeo but you can watch it here. 

Etsy treasuries

Been discovering amazing art on Etsy! Check out this treasury I made with the lastest work I found here. It made me realise how much I love black!

Lovely animation by Jiek Weishut

Great combination of adorable visuals with rather violent subjects. Really like the sounds too! Thank you Kritona for the link!

Online shop updates!

I have added some more prints and greeting cards on my online shop which you can see  here. Really pleased with how the archival prints came out. The colours are vibrant and some prints look almost velvety. Hope you like it :)

Graphic Short Story Prize deadline approaching!

I thought of an idea for this competition but unfortunately I don't have much time since my course starts very soon. So for anybody who is interested in Graphic novels the deadline is approaching (12th October) so hurry up pick up your pencils! For more info about the competition and previous entries click here.

Preparing stuff for Etsy

Today I spent the day mainly cutting very nicely printed (and rather expensive) work to sell on my Etsy shop. It was slightly stressful since making a slight mistake could cost money and another trip to the print shop in Brighton. Will package and photograph everything as soon as the weather allows for good photos.

Sam Bevington

Beautiful Illustration by Illustrator Sam Bevington for Suez Environment. So positive and happy!

Bye brain

I drew this piece for a campaign to celebrate the World Peace Day on 21st of September. The title of the project was 'If I had the freedom'. You can see more entries here.

Controlling the mind and stopping all thought processes is my idea of ultimate freedom! According to the University of Maryland School of Medicine 95% of the thoughts you had today are the same thoughts you had yesterday and the day before and the day before...

Gamasutra

My brother sent me a link for an incredibly useful article with tips about how to create successful animation in games. You can read the article here. There are some playful sprites illuminating the article as well as a teaser for Paul Robertson's latest work. The above sprite is one of my favourites! It is a clear example of exaggeration in animation. These frames don't do it justice so I urge you to click on the link and see the animated version!

I am on Pinterest!

You can see my Pinterest page here. It's quite fun pinning stuff from the web!

Be a Vegetarian from Glossyret

Lovely animation using the Puppet pin tool. Oh Puppet pin tool how I miss you...it's been a long time since I've used you!



and the making of:

Website update

Have you seen my website? If not click here. I updated it some time ago and forgot to mention it due to all the house hunting business! I am now working with some friends on the 'Julian Boolean' project (very slowly since we are all doing other stuff as well). Hopefully it will come together soon!

I am happy to say that I now have a house in London and I'm all set for the start of the academic year! It feels so strange to go back to school but I'm excited!

Globologos Characters by Martin Allais

Can you think of how to draw words with rather ambiguous meanings such as The Self, Hope and Philosophy into characters? Martin Allais did a really good job illustrating characters out of philosophy concepts! Animated by Stephane Poirier and David Leclerc.

David Swenson in London

Apologies for the lack of posts! I have been house hunting and couch surfing in London so did not have much time to think about my blog.

I have been feeling pretty stressed even though a lot of good things happened lately such as the fact that I have actually found a nice house in West London and that I recently discovered that David Swenson will be giving a series of classes/workshops in London this November. If you are an Ashtanga enthusiast check out the Triyoga studio's page here for dates and prices.

Pina (2)

Finally had the chance to watch this beautiful documentary-style movie about the German choreographer Pina Bausch. It is incredible how many different emotions come across her dances without a single word. I found some parts too abstract for me but nevertheless interesting. These are some of my favourite scenes. You can watch the trailer here.  Oh and the music is great!

Belly by Julia Pott

Julia Pott's RCA thesis animation is finally online. Beautiful colors, characters and narrative. Enjoy!

HR magazine commission

I drew an illustration for the July issue of HR magazine to accompany a very interesting article on flexible working - working from home. The art director had a clear idea of what they wanted which was a rather traditional doll house with a modern office and no people in the image at all. Placing the house on a hill was my idea based on the fact that no matter how beautiful the surroundings, working from home can often be lonely.

I found it easy to engage with the article since sometimes I work from home too and I'm familiar with the pros and cons. What I wasn't aware of prior to reading the article was that companies now embrace flexible working and give their employees the choice of either working in the office or home. You can read the article here. Photos of the printed illustration coming soon (I am in Cyprus at the moment and it will take a few days for it to arrive from the UK).

Politis feature

Yesterday I was excited because I was featured in the arty section of one of the main newspapers in Cyprus (despite the fact that I was featured as a graphic designer instead of an illustrator/animator) called Politis. I was curious to see which photo of myself they used since I left their studio the other day with an aching back from all the weird yoga poses I was told to perform. In the end they chose this one which refers to yoga but it is not TOO yoga-like (if this makes sense). There is a short interview on the side about what I draw/think. 

Short interview

I was recently contacted by gazette inspiration collector (a lovely arty blog) and was asked to answer a few questions about things I like (I tried to find a better phrase but 'things I like' seems to sum up what I want to say) and my work. I enjoyed answering these inspiration related questions which sort of reminded me of why my work ends up looking the way it does. Some times the work just develops automatically and remembering the reasons why I work using this style and ideas was quite reassuring. Anyway you can visit the beautifully designed gazette blog here and read the short interview here. 

Cyprus Archaeological Museum visit

The only image that stayed with me since my last visit to the Cyprus Archaeological museum is a room full of clay figures of varying sizes. Even though I was around eight years old when I saw these figures I was amazed by how many sculptures there were in that room. So yesterday I decided after so many years to visit the museum again and experience the room again!


I discovered that there are only one hundred sculptures in that room out of the two thousand found in the excavation...there is simply no space to put them so some of them were taken in Sweden (they were discovered by Swedish archaeologists). 


I also enjoyed the naive and amusing pot drawings and there was something really scary about the life sized sculptures. The whole experience was inspiring and the fact that people have been making art for so long is fascinating! 

Vishnu the Preserver

I admire religious / spiritual art mainly because of its symbolic nature. I particularly like Hindu images and Indian miniature painting because of their rich color and naive use of perspective. So after I read this bit (well some of it) on Wikipedia about Vishnu while brainstorming for an animation I started this drawing of Vishnu which is sort of my own version of him. So here are a few fascinating bits about Vishnu's iconographic representation (there are a lot of different interpretations of these elements so if you are interested in learning about them it's best if you do your own research rather than take my writing for granted): 

His skin is 'like water filled clouds' and he has four arms which symbolise the four aims of life: pleasure, success, righteousness and liberation. In his hands he is holding a Sudarshana chakra (upper left hand) which represents the will to multiply and also that he is the protector of the heavens. He is also holding a shell (Sancha) symbolising prosperity and a trident  which is a sign of asceticism. Vishnu is standing on a pink lotus in bloom because according to esoteric Buddhism the heart of a being is like an unopened lotus and when the virtues of the Buddha develop the lotus blossoms. The pink lotus is also a symbol of the highest deities. There are countless names and representations of Vishnu and the list of characteristics and symbols is endless so I will probably draw him again in the future!

AntiVJ

AntiVJ is a visual label working with projected light and messing with people's minds! My friend Costas was telling me how unique their work is the other day and I finally had a look on their website which made me want to move away from the traditional rectangular screen. You can see more of their work here.

Setting up Re Aphrodite

So yesterday it was setting up day for Re Aphrodite exhibition and even though it was extremely hot (my mum's car thermometer temperature reading was 44C!) it went pretty smoothly. The only thing I had to do was take Lady Alchymia to the museum and say whether it looked ok at the end when the museum officials and guards put it in the display. There was a lot of waiting around since we had to get permission to open the cabinet and certain people had to be present since it is full of expensive historic jewellery.

 I've never seen my work exhibited in this way and I'm still a bit unsure as to whether I like it or not. The exhibition organisers wanted the artists to work with the museum's artefacts and they really liked the idea of exhibiting the piece in this way. I guess I haven't really seen my work exhibited in a museum cabinet before! Ideally I would prefer to have it framed on that amazing textured wall but we are not allowed to drill any holes - interfere with the wall.

The opening is on the 4th of July so feel free to come if you are in Nicosia!

Re Aphrodite exhibition

I've been asked to take part in a rather unique exhibition in Cyprus which I'm excited about! The main reason is the space.  I sort of had an idea of what it looked like since it is a historic building and I went there with school (primary school so as you can imagine that was not very recent) but today I visited the place again and was very impressed.

The building used to be the house of a Christian-Othoman dragoman in the 18th century and is now a museum. There are numerous historic exhibits in the museum and new contemporary pieces by Cypriot artists will be created and exhibited alongside. I'm really pleased I got chosen to take part and look forward to seeing my work exhibited in such a beautiful historic building.

The idea was that some artists were going create pieces based on the building's history but unfortunately I did not have the chance to do that since I was away so I'm exhibiting Lady Alchymia.
One of the many amazing features of the house is that there is a secret passage which sort of looks like a wardrobe (it even has some steps that lead outside) which is the place from there the dragoman actually escaped from when he was chased by .... I forgot who but anyway in the end they found him somewhere in Turkey and decapitated him. He was not the nicest person though so...

Cat on a plane

I apologise for the lack of posts...I had quite a lot to do in the last week and now I can finally relax a bit! Transporting my cat from England to Cyprus proved out to be a mission, it was a very stressful experience and I honestly do not recommend it to anybody. He is still hiding under the bed now and comes out to explore the room every now and then.
I finally managed to move out of my house and studio in Brighton and have a couple of days to rest now at last!