ArtRage

I stumbled upon ArtRage, a free painting program, via the CG Talk forum which I quite like. It has a nice natural media feel of paint mixing with the paint below it when applied to the canvas, this is good up until the colours start getting muddy. They have just released a higher spec version for $20 which I might try as it has layers and may stop the muddiness. Here is a rough painting using ArtRage of my boyfriend seen repeating through my laptop monitor.



Paul painted in ArtRage

Isle of Man

For Christmas, we went to stay with my boyfriend’s family on the Isle of Man, my first visit there. I found it to be a really pretty place, very rural inland and faded seaside townish in Douglas. The weather was sunny but cold and there was a light frost on Christmas day, unlike the snow and rain we usually have at Christmas in Newcastle. It’s a place that is rich in folklore, I said hello to the fairies on the fairy bridge, visited sights seen in Waking Ned and saw the church that the Buggane pulled the roof off.


COB at the Fairy Bridge

The black rocks of Niarbyl

St Trinian's

Advent

In the run up to Christmas I ran a one day session making paper mache Nativity figures with the children of the parish of St Nicholas’s Church in Gosforth. The theme was loosely based on the Mexican Christmas tradition of the Posada and it was great day! I am always surprised by paper mache as it is a lo-tech technique that produces striking results. Here are some pictures of the figures.

Mary
Joseph

The Donkey

Mary in profile looking unacannily like my Grandma

Swindon

I spent a lovely weekend with my good friends Kate and Robert in Swindon, well when I say Swindon, they took me to some nicer places such as Marlborough, Avebury and Bath (I adored and would recommend visiting the Roman Baths). Here we are at the fantastic standing stones in Avebury.

Me and Kate

Robert hugging a stone

Stone Man

Theatre

In December I managed to get out and see some good theatre shows. One I’d seen before and was again impressed with was Stomp, which combines humour with homemade percussion with anything that comes to hand, including rubber pipes, brushes, bins (not just their lids) and even the kitchen sink! I would definitely recommend it to anyone, but what I did go to see and was blown away by, was the Blue Man Group. How do I describe it? Here goes…it’s blue men doing art, performance, animation, projections, comedy, music, pantomime, etc. Absolutely fantastic, best show I’ve ever seen. Here’s a picture of me with one the Blue Men.

A Small Room

During my MA I developed an idea for a two minute animation called “A Small Room”. It’s quite a dark little tale about a normal man who lives in a normal street where there are lots of far-from-normal disappearances. One day on his way back from work one day, he is asked to play with two young girls whose father is missing. He feels a bit silly and uncomfortable but not as uncomfortable as he soon finds himself.

I am extremely grateful to have been awarded funding from The DigitalCity and Northern Film and Media to actually make the film. Here is a test rendering until I can post more.

MA Graduation

In November I graduated from the University of Teesside with an MA in Computer Animation. It was a fantastic course and I learnt so much. I started the course knowing very little about animation and went on to get a distinction for my final project and dissertation which was entitled “Re-Creating Stop-Motion Animation Within Computer Generated Animation”. Here are some pictures from the graduation day, I got to wear a red gown!













Receiving my award
















With my proud parents

Lack Of Posts

The reason why I haven’t posted on COB’s Blog for so long is that I have been very busy, the following posts detail what I have been up to between November and January.