Challenges...Lots of Them

I'm three weeks into the semester and it's been a lot crazier than I expected. I feel like I've been running on a never-ending treadmill since last week; I'm extremely exhausted but I know I can't stop running because when I do, I'll fall flat on my face and everything I've worked for will fall apart in an instant. I'm pretty proud of myself for taking on a big challenge (taking six art classes, tutoring math, helping seniors with their thesis films, working out every day) and managing to be on top of it all. But tonight, after I got out of a very dense three-hour design theory class, I realized I haven't had time to work on my personal art. For instance, I just learned a lot about "balance" in composition and realized there's so much more I could do to improve my art. But I don't have the time to do so. It's frustrating, but I know I brought it on myself, so I can't really blame anyone or anything. I guess I'm just gonna have to push even harder and start prioritizing my art over other things.

Anyway, to cheer myself up, I've decided to dump a bunch of assignments and projects I've done the past two and a half weeks here, as proof that I've been working pretty damn hard.

This is probably my favorite work from last week. It's a self portrait for my design theory class. We were only allowed to use basic shapes and black and white.

These are quick studies of a peach tree that I did after reading "The Selfish Giant", a short fairy tale by Oscar Wilde. I'm hoping to paint some backgrounds and concept art based on the story and hopefully use them as portfolio pieces.

The next ones are little animation bits I did for my mechanics of motion class and also at the El Grupo workshop. I think I always have the most fun when I'm animating, because I love turning something still into something that could move and live!

Cannonball!

I had so much fun animating this little fly at the El Grupo workshop last Sunday. Turns out this background was taken from Calvin and Hobbes! I'm so excited to add more--a flag and a leaping frog--to this scene!

And now for my worst work of the week! This is another assignment for my design theory class. We were given two statements starting with "I love" and "I hate"--all of them were written by a different person in class--and we had to take or compose a picture conveying either of the statements. I got: "I love each step closer I take towards the person waiting for me at the airport". If you can't tell, it's very specific and it gave me such a hard time.

I got the idea of a finish line at some point when I was looking for airport pictures, so I just ran with it. And I thought I did a pretty good job. Until literally five hours ago when my professor and classmates pointed out everything that was wrong with it. And now I see it all; I see how there's too much going on that you can't even tell it's an airport or that there's a luggage on the far left corner, or that the feet are almost horizontally in the middle, or that there's no real focus, or that it's unbalanced. Whew. That was a mouthful. I got a little upset that it wasn't nearly as good as I thought it was, but then I realized I should feel proud that now I know what's wrong with it. Now I can make better art.

An Animated Valentine's

Last night, I had a romantic Valentine's dinner with a lightbox and a couple of erasable colored pencils. Let me tell you, it wasn't nearly as sad as you think it was. Hah.

I went with a friend to the El Grupo Animation and Story Workshop in Burbank for the first time. Traffic was incredibly painful on the way there, but it was well worth the trip. When we got there, we were welcomed by the ever-smiling Alex Topete and a handful of students from other schools. Unlike all of them who are already working on an actual film, I'm not trained animator yet, so I had to start from the beginning and animate a bouncing ball. I was so excited to finally do some squashing and stretching!

The next step was to add a tail to this little bouncing ball. I wasn't really sure I was doing it right and sure enough, I had to do at least four revisions to get it to work.

The hardest part was figuring out what the tail should do when the ball hits the ground and squashes. Turns out it curves down and points to the right. It was astonishing how changing the curve in a single frame made the animation a lot smoother.

My friend and I definitely enjoyed our night (and forgot about being single just for a second. haha). I think we're coming back on Sunday to do more animation! Hooray!

LA Zoo

Today I finally got to visit the Los Angeles Zoo! I've been meaning to go since after winter break, because I really wanted to practice drawing animals (and also see cute giraffes), but I just didn't have the time and a ride at the same time. Luckily my university hosted a free trip to the zoo, so a friend of mine and I got to go and sketch our day away!

When we got to the zoo around noon, I made sure I saw my favorite animals first. That meant eating at a little cafe with the best view of the giraffes. I've never really sketched moving giraffes before, so my sketches are pretty sloppy (actually all of my sketches are, so whatever).

There were three giraffes--I think one of them was a baby--and they all walked in the same circle and looked in the same direction the whole time. It was really interesting; I never noticed that before! I got to study the pattern on their skin too. Seeing the giraffes at zoo reminded me of how much I've been wanting to animate a short about a clumsy little giraffe and his adventures with a grumpy cat. Hah.

My friend loves elephants the way I love giraffes, so we knew we had to see the elephants next. And we did, except they were so far away we couldn't sketch them properly. We decided to come back later so we can see the other animals first. And we did, too, except they were all taking their little afternoon naps! We saw a sleeping tiger, jaguar, bear, and oh, an adorable sleeping hippo! It had its little butt facing us and we couldn't help but sketch it. Haha.

Our best model of the day, no doubt, was a wise old tortoise. It was so still that I got carried away and drew more details than I usually do. Haha.

Then I got to see gorillas! They were mesmerizing! One of them was really close to the window so I got to sketch it up close. I don't know if I was just seeing things, but I swear I saw it hugging itself and its eyes had this somber look. It looked sad. The other gorilla looked a little less serious; it was just chilling on top of a boulder and munching on some snacks. 

Aaaaaand the ridiculously cute award of the day goes to the koalas! They were so cute I swear I could have died from squealing. There was one sleeping so peacefully up in a eucalyptus tree and there was another one with a baby koala on its back! Squee!

About twenty minutes before we had to leave, we ran back to catch the elephants like we planned. We were almost out of hope because the elephants were still far away, but literally at the last minute, the elephants started walking towards the fences! We were so excited that we forgot to take pictures and just hurriedly sketched gestures. They kept walking around, so a lot of my sketches were done in 20 seconds or so. Haha.

I wish I had more time to sketch and observe all the animals, but sadly I only had three hours to spend. It was three hours definitely well spent though!