always ending always beginning

Transition day - unpacking school bags, repacking into bush bags.

Yesterday I finished my first (of three) month-long July intensives for my Masters of Applied Arts at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Even if I had time to post on this blog during that period, I don't think I would have been able to keep up with the amount of learning that happened during that period. Hopefully that learning will become apparent in my work and in my posts.

Tomorrow I head North for three weeks. I'm doing a residency with Parks Canada, the US National Park Service and the Yukon Arts Centre - basically tromping through the bush for two weeks along the Chilkoot Trail and giving a few artist talks. I'll be making a sequential art series that documents the journey - a page a day, pen and ink on watercolour paper. I don't want to call it a graphic novel or a comic, because the way I'll be creating the images is going to be left to chance a little bit. I'll describe that some more next time I have time to post. I'm also getting reference for another project that I'll describe later.

I do plan on posting more steadily in September again, when I'm back from my trip, and I'll try to post when I get the chance. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month. I'm looking forward to sharing the work I've been doing, and writing about my thoughts. But at the moment, there's no time to write and think! I have to pack all that crap into my backpack and get ready to go.

Here's a link to something I did in late June. It's a pretty accurate document of how I was re-assessing my work at the time, and maybe an indication of how I'm starting to look for other ways of creating narrative works:

http://www.gogomax49.com/JW_Salal1_01.html

I actually think I'm going to continue Salal. There's a bit more to add to the story now, but I haven't had time to do it.

dormancy

All the action is in my head.

There's not a lot of actual art production happening right now, but lots of thinking and working nevertheless. 

I'm learning a lot of new software that will make my 3D animation process a lot more fluid. At the moment it feels like I'm back at square one, but that's the way it always is with growth and learning. If I felt totally comfortable with what I was doing, I wouldn't be learning, would I? 

Many thoughts about projects - too many thoughts, maybe. 

Two big paintings are almost finished. Those, and storyboards, and my break from reading instruction manuals and fiddling with buttons. 

On rainy days like this, the clouds come in low over the hill across the cove, shrouding the evergreens with greys and whites. 

Last night I had a swim in the rain. Water drops bouncing around me like silver beads. The soft but powerful exhale of a seal. Crows flitting through the Douglas Firs and Arbutus. A Great Blue Heron takes a nap on a dock. 

outdoor studio

There are few things in life I enjoy more than painting outside in the sun. Every minute I can spend doing that is a blessing.

...

Today is damp, cloudy, but warm. The ocean will be a little colder on the surface, but the weekend boat traffic will be gone. I might wait until sunset to swim, because the tide will be higher and I'd like to see some wildlife. 

water

The ocean is warmer every day. Only the first couple of seconds are shocking - after that, you can stay out for a long time before getting cold. Get out there, West Coast Canadians!

sketching the movement of an imaginary lizard

Sketchin' movement. Lookin' at trees and imaginin' the creature I'm building leaping around. I'm keeping these loose because I want to reference them directly when I animate, to maintain that same unrestrained feeling in the motion. I like some of the compositions as well.

...

I just started school today - the Low-Residency Masters of the Applied Arts Program through the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. It's very exciting. I have to learn some esoteric words like Ontology, but I promise not to use them on this blog.

thinking with colours

A couple acrylic sketch-paintings from my acrylic sketch-painting sketchbook.

They're another step towards figuring out how I'm going to do backgrounds on this film. It's taking some time because I want to do it differently than I've done it before, and I have some specific thoughts on how I'd like to merge painting with 3D lighting.

This line of thought is actually something more than just backgrounds to a film... I love painting and photographing outdoor scenes, and I keep trying to things of ways I can animate them. Later this summer I'm actually doing a two-week residency at Chilkoot Trail National Park, on the borders of Alaska, Yukon, and BC, with this kind of project in mind as well: How to animate wilderness scenes in a painterly way?

Such are the earth-shattering questions that I am fated to pursue the answers for.

purdy!

 Whoa dang! Those Dogwoods are purdy!

Same with them fresh Maple leaves!