Last summer, my two animation assistants decided it would be a great idea if I drew all of my backgrounds on paper (thanks, Reagan and Katie!). Never one to step down from a challenge (good idea??), I am now eyeballs deep in an analog process that I have not engaged with in possibly forever. I am a different draftsperson now than I was when I stopped drawing on paper for the majority of my work, and it has been really incredible to see how it feels for present-day me to wield a pencil in this context. Not sure of so many things with this project, but I am going wherever the process takes me! (Also, I lost my voice yesterday….six days before mom and I leave for Thailand!)
When Kevin and I created our Wellness class Ani-Motion, I’m not sure we were expecting our enthusiasm for the subject to be matched with such passion! What a gift it is to be able to invent ways to play and have a room full of students join in whole-heartedly. Kevin might have lost this race (badly, it appears ;)), but he and I are winning in the long run!
I could not be more proud of my students who offered up an entire weekend to a fellow student with a wish. RIT senior Zach Sheikh is battling cancer for the third time, and wanted to bring the RIT community together to create games and animation that would inspire young adults who are also facing adversity. We spent Saturday and Sunday collaborating and producing an animation that incorporated 2D and 3D assets, and the end result, while still a bit glitchy, shows what can happen when we focus our energies for good!
https://www.whec.com/top-news/rit-hosts-jam-for-hope-for-student-living-with-cancer/
SO honored to have been asked to be part of RIT MFA student Selma PeAr’s Voices which she managed to complete smack in the middle of the pandemic shutdown. Directed by Selma and also featuring Komal Ashfaq (who was also the Producer) and Lani Dobson, this film is a beautifully subversive statement about where women stand today. CT Chen was the DP, with Robert Stokes as First AC, Nolan Kearney as Second AC, Zack Stone as Gaffer, and Creighton Yanchar as Sound Mixer. Congratulations on a wonderful, RIT Honors Show-selected film, everyone!
mari jaye blanchard in Voices by Selma PeAr
Komal Ashfaq in Voices by Selma PeAr
Lani Dobson in Voices by Selma PeAr
Very proud of my freshmen classes’ ability to pivot in the middle of a semester, return home, and continue working in such innovative ways! They were featured in this RIT article highlighting (only) some of their solutions to continuing their work without any of the hardware on campus!
Below are the instructions I made for them regarding DIY light tables and down-shooters, and they did the rest!
DIY Downshooter Using StopMo Studio App
RIT Lecturer Kevin Bauer and I received a PLIG (Provost Learning Innovations Grant) in 2019 for our project “SOFA SLow-Mo”, and when we envisioned bringing students together to explore movement and record it all in slow motion, I am not entirely sure either of us saw Kevin sitting in a turtle themed kiddie pool getting yogurt poured over his head 
(in my efforts to stay environmentally friendly but also have different liquids to pour and observe fluid dynamics, I opted for eggs, flour, yogurt, milk and water…a veritable raw pancake of material!) The students who joined us for this session bounced, threw, jumped, ran and spun their way to more reference footage for their peers for years to come!
Happy to be part of this vertical video spotlight by MAGIC Spell Studios regarding how we 2D animators are considering the traditional “line” in drawing.
My VR Workshop this past July was a great success. HUGE thanks to the US Embassy for sponsoring my visit, as well as the visits of fellow Americans (and Rick and Morty Directors) Bryan Newton and Matt Taylor!
My students and I were so fortunate to get a visit from Melissa Brush of the Nocturnal Gallery who I met by chance in a bookstore and HAD to invite to my Drawing for Animation class! The slideshow says it all…animals are amazing, in every slippery shape and form. Some students carefully confronted their fear of certain ones (entirely white Ball Python around the neck, anyone?) and others jumped in with gusto, sketchpads in hand. A wonderful drawing day, and we can’t be more grateful to Melissa for joining us!
Just spent a few days down in West Virginia at the North Mountain Residency with other ILSSA (Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts) members and am re-energized as a teacher AND a human being! Workshops varied from book-binding to sonic meditation to vintage animation, which is the discussion I led and which pleasantly surprised me in terms of everyone’s focus, efforts and results. They can all be seen here, including a song sung during dinner-prep that I absolutely had to include.