Artist Frustrations...

Yesterday after class, I went to visit a third year animation teacher known as DQ.

He sat down with me, and patiently, on his own clock, for about forty five minutes, and went through my portfolio, one page at a time.

He offered me a lot of helpful advice, and now I want to redo everything in my portfolio.

I've never in my life been so torn between relief and frustration.

I was told, that as an animator, he liked my art. He liked my style, the visual appeal, my design (I still have no idea wtf that means), my clean up... He liked my art, which was incredibly inspiring and relieving, as everything I drew just for me he liked. All of my spare sketches and especially the one I posted the other day complaining about my bad posture, he liked.

But, the art in my portfolio, my rotation, my character design.. Was stiff, and lifeless. "Body parts stacked on top of each other," "all the pieces are there, but it's like they're not interacting together,". Tinette's design consisted of a lot of sharp points that I have to "watch out for, cause they're difficult to animate," and my drawings were, "Borderline illustrative,"

When I got home... I wanted to throw my portfolio in the air in frustration and tear into it and just.. eat it, really. Two of these I drew right after getting home, the first and the last. I wasn't quite in a drawing mood and was having a bit of an.. "I'm very shaken," funk. They didn't turn out all that amazing, but the one I added today, the middle one, turned out much better.

I would have downloaded better suited fonts... But I can't say I care all that much about this little doodle to do so.

So, at the same time that I'm happy and honoured that DQ liked my art and took time out of his busy work schedule to look at my art and give me his honest opinion, and not only that, he LIKED my art; I'm frustrated to no end with my portfolio.

Today was the premiere of our Artist Trading Card club; and it was great. A lot more people than we expected showed up, our snacks were eaten heartily, we watched a lot of movies, met a few new people, and all made ATC name cards for ourselves, as well as picked our themes for the coming months.

My themes are Persephone, Supernatural, Aliens and... oh yeah, Zombies. So exciting... I'm totally drawing a Sabriel zombie. I like Garth Nix zombies. Well no, they sort of scare me senseless, but I do quite like them.

I'm also doing a personal one on one trade with my friend Ksenia, who is going to paint Suka for me, while I am going to make her a postcard following the theme "Spring". I'm excited. It was wonderful to see her again, she's such a sweetheart and I missed her dearly. I'll be bringing her over for tea some tuesday when things aren't too busy... Which on Tuesdays they typically aren't.

She gave me this beautiful silver ring as a gift, and I was so shocked when it actually fit my finger (rings never fit my fingers); and I'm going to try and wear it as much as I'm able. I'm not much of a ring person due to the fact that I can never fit them over my fat knuckles... Ksenia even mentioned it wasn't much my style, but sometimes occasions (like a date) call for such things. Seeing as I'm not planning on going on dates any time soon... I shall make use of it as a ring so much as I can!

I still have homework to do, so I must go and throw together three stamp designs. Adieu.

~Annie

11:21

Blast it, I missed 11:11 again.