the Pressure Begins!

So I have had a bit of a crazy week-and-a-half.  Raiden was pretty sick 3 times, and I caught his illnesses.  Things in general just got pretty hectic, but I did some adjustments, to both my schedule and how I was handling Raiden.  Things are so much better now!  I told myself 'I knew this would happen,' shook it off, took a breath, and figured it out.

Classes are great.  I am starting an independent study with Scott Wright now too.
Here are some projects I have done this week:

Color & Design:

Character Design:

(Rick Mackey still has the full-body turn-around)

2D Character Animation:

A shot from my bouncing ball assignment.
(I will post the whole bounce when I finally teach myself an animating software this week!)

Wrap-up of the First Week!

Well, I feel so satisfied.  I love all of the classes I am taking.  I feel so inspired and productive.  It feels unreal that I will be making a film by the end of the school year, but after this week I feel that it actually is possible.  In fact I created my very first animation in just 2 1/2 hours today!  You can follow this link to see it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJaCoa2uLJM

Raiden absolutely LOVES going to daycare!  He doesn't even care whether I am there or not when I drop him off - and he is normally a big-ol' mamma's boy!  He hasn't been getting enough sleep however.  Which also makes him restless and sleep less at night, but at least he is having fun.

Here are some sketches from my 2D character design class.  This class got my heart beating because I have more experience in it, but I need a good mentor to learn from.  The teacher is amazing - Rik Maki, and I am so happy he is my teacher.  These sketches are from in-class, and from a homework assignment that I started:

Here are some sketches that I did today in my skill enrichment class.  I was very upset when I first signed-up for this class because it was a last-minute requirement to add a 9th class to my schedule.  I am so happy that I am in it now though!  The teacher, Maria Vaslikovsky, relates to me as a mother and an artist.  She really pushes us to be creative and exploratory.  I absolutely LOVED our first class!  I made my very first animation, which can be seen at:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJaCoa2uLJM

It was such an amazing experience to animate for the first time.  It took me a while to dive-in and realize that I could make a character move and live on the page, but once I realized it - well I still couldn't believe it!  I might add more to it next week, so check back!  Here are the sketches from class:

And, lastly, here are some of the homework assignments that I have started for color and design, and for digital methods, though he said to just bring in random hand-drawn pictures:

(Me and Rai)

On Break at CG Character Animation

2nd Day of Classes

So my second day of classes consisted of CG Foundation with Andrew Bac, Color and Design with Brooke Keesling, and Story with Jennifer and David Skelly, though Jennifer will be mainly teaching our class.  They work as a team for their story class but they are separated this semester between 2 classes.
It is so great to be learning all of these different skills.  The teachers are amazing.  I am so eager to grow in these classes!  Homework is starting to build!

Here are some sketches from Day 2 of classes:

1st Day of Classes

So for my first 2 classes of the week I had 2-D Character Animation with Scott Wright, and Digital Methods with Fran Krause.  I am very excited!  They are both great at what they do, and I can't believe how much I expect to learn by the end of the semester, if that makes any sense at all.  Well we will be expected to make a short animated clip by the end of the year - I just can't believe that I will learn all the stuff it takes to do that!  I am very excited!

We watched a couple short animations in Digital Methods today, they were both great.  One was:
Hill Farm by Mark Baker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c24WE5xJyIQ


We took introductory notes for the most part.  Here are some sketches from the classes:

some students:

Mommy and Me Cal Arts ID

Raiden joined me for 95% of Cal Arts Orientation and Registration

Cal Arts Orientation Sketches

Didn't get much time for sketching between keeping Raiden quiet and trying to listen to the speakers, but here's what I got:

More Breakfast Sketches

I start Cal Arts Orientation tomorrow!  Raiden will have a babysitter during nap time but the rest of the week he will be coming with me to all the meetings and events!  Here are some more sketches I did during breakfast.

Pretty cheezy, but hey I like it for some crazy reason:

Raiden Sketches/the Story Begins

   After having my son, who is 1 year-old now, I decided to go back to school, this time to study animation at Cal Arts here in L.A.  I can't believe my son is already 1 year old!  It seems like it's still big news that I am a new mom!  We have so much fun together; he is the light of my life that keeps me focussed and happy.
   We are doing this together, whith much love and determination.  Cal Arts starts next week.  Let the fun begin!
   Here are some sketches I have done of Raiden (my son) during breakfast in the patio.