I've been busy with work and writing for the last few weeks, and as a result it's been a bit too quiet on Tuesdays around here. So to make for that, here's three Tuesday worth of patented Work Notebook Sketches™ ...
So no doodles today - all singing, all dancing in beautiful technicolour - my 60 second version of Mr Liam Neeson's opus "Taken" for the Empire Done in 60 Seconds Competition ...
The cartoonist Ronald Searle passed away today. He was, most agree, a cartoon http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgenius and he was a huge influence on my work. One of those artists who not only drew brilliantly, but drew funny.
So to honour the maestro, in my own tiny way, here's a vaguely Searle-esque doodle. He may no longer be with us, but his influence will live on through the countless others he's inspired over the years...
So, last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Bristol Animated Encounters Festival. I was on a panel at the wonderful DepicT! competition and presented this year's Audience award. Good times! I also got a chance to see a talk by animation legend John K.
He talked a lot about his influences - particularly early animation, 1940s classics and 1940s live action acting. He also screened several shorts including Tex Avery's "Bad Luck Blackie" which I've included below. He here's a few o the notes I took away from that lecture...
On Cartoons
Animation works best when it does what live action cannot do
Cartoon vs Animation Animation = to bring things to life Cartoons = FUNNY drawings/animation
On His Influences
Tex Avery created contolled choas - there was always a well structed story underneath the cartoony mayhem - eg. Bad Luck Blackie (1949)
Bob Clampett had the cartoony craziness, but more importantly had characters with strong, identifiable personalities
Live action influences - 1940s film noir acting had intensity eg Peter Lorre & Kirk Douglas - 1950s - 1970s American sitcom acting for strong perosnalities eg All in the Family
Yep, sorry about that. Still got lots of things going on with work and variuos projects, nothing I can blog I'm afraid, so it'll have to be some of my patented notebook doodles ...
Apologies for the lack of Popcorn this week - I've been busy with work, writing scripts and preparing a 'guest lecture' for the Irish School of Animation tomorrow, so I'm afraid it's just a couple of sketchbook doodles this week. Tune in next week for another corny comic strip though...
Aidan is a travellin' Irishman. An Academy Award watching animator, he makes images move for money and sometimes, pleasure.
He enjoys marmite, moonlight and collected works of William Shatner - almost exclusively non-ironically.
He doesn't usually refer to himself in the third person.