Delight

In that light, it is a delight...a wonder to study and to learn to love some small part of what God must have loved when he made a lizard. To delight with him in its scales, color, spines and forms. And to me, God is saying "you like that? me too!" 

- Nicholas Kole

One of my favorite memes is the German Cola Kid. As attempting to explain any meme is a fools errand, you should probably watch this animated version to see what it's about. But in the event you don't have time for that, I will now attempt to explain the meme. In the video, the aforementioned "Cola Kid" excitedly relates how his mom has just allowed him to drink cola and play Fortnite, the combination of which is enough to send him in a joyous YIPEEE!!

Kids, exemplified by the Cola Kid, are able to find joy and excitement in the most mundane of things. For me, it wasn't cola and Fortnite, but it was frozen pizza, being old enough to stay home alone, and watching Cartoon Network. As a kid, it didn't take much to have a good day, or to be obsessed with trains, dinosaurs, and sea creatures. (Isn't it crazy how deeply kids fall in love with things most adults never care about?) I think this open wonder and delight towards the world is one of the first things to go as we grow older. It was for me, at least. As we see more things, even incredible things become normal, and we forget that they were ever unexpected in the first place. As we see more broken and sorrowful things, our open delight in pockets of beauty and brilliance is replaced with a defensive cynicism.

As I've recently been thinking about What I Want to Say With My Art, I keep coming back to this idea of delight.  I think about the way God delights in us, His children. And the way He looked at His creation and said that it was good. Because God didn't have to make the world so dang beautiful. He didn't have to make a world with jellyfish, and sandstone arches, and the color blue, and good pizza. But He did. And I think that gives us the permission to get excited. Childishly, foolishly excited. In our art (our writing, drawing, cooking, all of it) we can lash out in unbridled admiration for this flower or that person or this cola and say yes. this is good. taste and see! That, at least, is what I want to do. To, in the words of artistic theologian Robert Capon, "look the world back to grace."

For me, the aquarium is one of the best places to practice this habit. Here is gathered, at great cost and human effort, the strangest and most majestic forms of life on earth. And our whole mission is simply to look at them. But the looking, we find, is difficult. We're anxious to move on to the next exhibit, so we delegate our looking to a quick photo and keep walking. 

I think the designers of Georgia Aquarium particularly understood this tension. For all its beautiful theming and chaotic, lawless atrium, the building's most impressive feature is a simple dark room facing a massive wall of water. Rays and sharks more than twice my height effortlessly sail across its cerulean surface and back into the murky distance. To me, it's the brontosaurus scene of Jurassic Park, only real. Finally, as an adult, I'm confronted with things I haven't seen, on a scale I cannot understand.  In response, the Georgia Aquarium offers me a large, carpeted step. I sit down, pull out my Ipad, and begin drawing. Drawing convinces my adult brain that I'm not wasting my time, so that my kid brain can say again, "cool shark. big shark." More than making a "good drawing," I now want to capture what's delightful about "shark." I wonder if what you find delightful may be entirely different. But regardless, I think we have a lot to learn from each other. 

So get painting, dancing, writing, and let me know!

Thanks for your readership :)

-dh

Frog Lady

 I'm back! And the semester is over! Thank goodness!

Or in particular, Philosophy of Religion is over! The day I turned in my final paper was one of much rejoicing, ice cream, and dancing. I also got very close to burning all my class handouts in our dorm's firepit. Then I realized that a student burning academic papers in broad daylight would probably not be a great look for the university. So I decided to refrain from that. Anyways, in an act of God's grace I somehow got a 93 on the paper, and my thoughts were able to turn toward more pleasant activities. Like gift exchanges! And smoking pipes with friends! And drawing tigers at the zoo!

When drawing at the zoo it often comes down to finding the right combination of materials that feel comfortable that day. I usually juggle pencils and pens and the Pad until something feels right, and then the drawings typically end up better. Fortunately, I can usually figure that out by the time I get to the tiger exhibit, and extra fortunately the tiger was right next to the glass both times I visited! I don't know exactly what inspired it, but this time I felt drawn to thick ink lines with a limited selection of colors underneath. I would begin by scratching the surface lightly with the brush for the undersketch, then build up to thicker lines as more of the drawing was completed. Even though this was all done with an ink brush (Jingsketch's Thin Ink), I made full use of the eraser (a big reason why I enjoy digital "inks" more than traditional ones). Anyways, these were fun to do and it was fun to be so close to a big cat while drawing. 

But enough about tertiary stuff. You've read the title, and you've put up with my excessively long introduction for too long. It's time for Frog Lady.

I actually made this piece a few weeks back but didn't post it because Instragram crippled their hashtag system for a frustratingly long time following the election. But now that hashtags are back to normal (as probably the only thing that will be "back to normal" during 2020) I've started to resume my usual posting schedule to get some art back out there! This happened to coincide nicely with the season finale of The Mandalorian, and so I wrote up my best attempt at a humorous caption and sent my version of the froggy lady out into the world. And as it turns out, there are a lot of frog lady fans out there! I had assumed this was a pretty niche favorite character to have (and she is my favorite Star Wars character, honestly) but I guess her charming practical effects, adorable little gestures, and irrepressible commitment to her family have universal appeal. So far, she is my most popular post and the closest I've come to "trending" or "viral." She reached the #2 spot on #starwars (screenshotted that for the scrapbook) and received sustained attention for about 2 whole days (much longer than the typical 8 hour life cycle for an Insta post). And the greatest honor was that Frog Lady herself (well, the actress who played her) saw the post and had kind things to say about it!

With a post doing this well, it gave me a lot to think about. When you post art online, this is the sort of thing you always hope will happen. I spend hours, often days on pieces that end up feeling like they had very little impact at all, and are barely seen even by my core audience. I use Instagram too, and I know how fast people zoom by incredible pieces of art because I do it myself, often. So when a post makes a slightly larger splash than usual, it can be really exciting. Every new follower is a jolt of dopamine. You watch the numbers tick up and hope the ball keeps rolling. I didn't even touch the post for a couple days for fear of messing up the algorithm. 

Is this what being a "big artist" feels like?

Cause I'm not so sure I like it. I treat Instagram pretty personally, and I care about the people who follow me. That means I try to respond to every comment I can think of an interesting reply to. When I get new followers, I want to welcome them and give them a chance to get to know me and my art. This takes time, usually a manageable amount, but when a post reaches this level it can take more time than I really want to give. If my posts were to do this well consistently, then I fear I would be forced to decide to engage less overall or spend even more time doing things that are not-art. When it came to followers, I've only been thinking about quantity. But now I'm starting to see the value of quality.

I appreciate that so many of my followers are people who care. People who comment on nearly every one of my posts. People who put up with weeks of inactivity on my part. I see you guys, and I'm thankful for you. It seems much more optimal to have a community like this, who is real and engaged and understanding, than a huge community that is largely apathetic towards what I seek to make. This post also comes in the wake of Instagram making some greedy algorithmic decisions, which have been weighing on me as Instagram is my main way of interacting with my online community. It seems more challenging than ever to be seen by potential new followers or even the ones you already have. And in addition to pleasing the masses, you must also please the developers/algorithm who somehow manage to be even more fickle. The path they promise to social media popularity seems ever changing, and ultimately detrimental to both creators and consumers. It trends toward frequent, short-lived, and banal content that tends to waste people's time.

That is not what I want to make. I want to make things that are good and beautiful. And if it comes at the cost of a smaller community who also cares about what is good and beautiful, I think that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. 

Anyways that's what I felt after posting Frog Lady haha! Always in for a fun time at the Roost, aren't ya? This was a long one, and likely one of the final posts of the year unless I return for my customary Christmas Eve post. We aren't doing our usual double church service marathon with a Jason's Deli stop in the middle (it's gonna be a strange Eve for sure) so I'll probably have more time to write something up. I've also started working on my usual year-end post but since I can barely remember February, it may take a while to finish it. Hope to see you then! And on Instagram, despite it all. 

Thanks for being a part of this community with me. :)

-dh

Color Keys from the Florida Keys

Hey everyone! 

I just got back from a week-long trip boat trip with my family. Yep, that's right, a boat trip. Do people still do many boating vacations nowadays? Not a cruise ship or anything. I'm talking one-family-two-sails-really-feel-the-waves-underneath-the-hull kind of boating. Anyways, I really enjoyed it. It's a totally different way of of life, and while I'm glad to be back on land, it was fun to try! I now have a much better understanding of what Rat means when he talks about "Simply messing, messing about in boats, or with boats. In or out of em, it doesn't matter" (that's Rat from The Wind in the Willows - though I dearly hope you already knew that). I'm still trying to get all the salt out of my clothes and hair - it's a process. Especially since I won't be going to Ireland this summer, it was nice to have the chance to see a new place, though one of a significantly warmer and more humid nature: the Florida Keys. I've been recently amazed by just how big America is. Even though Florida is still in the states, it definitely feels like a different country compared to Tennessee. The expansive salt marshes, the spanish moss, the decaying rust bridges set over azure salt water - it just all seems so summer-y and adventurous. And this strange nostalgia for the landscape of Florida and the coastal American South (part of the reason why I LOVE Princess and the Frog), was nice to indulge. And indulge I did! Through gazing for hours out of the car window and the boat ... spaces on deck??? Oh and I also did some art. Bet you didn't expect that! ;) 

I brought, as usual, way too many art supplies, most of which I never used. I intended to do watercolor pieces like I did during my Bahamas mission trip last summer, but when I started the first one I kept getting frustrated with the pencil sketch which seemed to predict getting even more frustrated with the watercolor later down the line... so I caved, pulled out the Ipad, and worked almost entirely digitally for the remainder of the trip. The watercolors and gouache were not touched :( I have mixed feelings about the outcome. This was my first big trip with The Pad, by the way. I felt like the digital nature of the art was able to capture the luminosity and vibrancy of the color and water in way that would have been difficult for me to do with traditional media. And the whole process is just so much easier. I feel more comfortable with it as a medium, I feel more free to experiment, depicting light is quick (lookin at u, multiply and overlay layers), I don't have to wait for paint to dry, and I don't have to mix colors unless I want to. So all that means drawings that look prettier (in my opinion) and I have more time to spend on the actual vacation. (which is kinda the point of the thing)

But, on the other hand, I feel like traditional plein air painting in new and inspiring places is what encourages me to still keep traditional media as part of my skillset. I don't want to be a primarily/exclusively digital artist if I can help it, cause I feel like each time I put serious effort into my traditional work, I make breakthroughs on the digital side as well. Remember that Brother Bear poster? Or perhaps any tree I have drawn in the past year? Those were directly influenced by how I plein air paint with gouache.

It's in the simplification of shading and round shapes in the tree

Traditional media is just cool, and becoming increasingly rare in animation art. In other words, the Disney Archives are quickly becoming something you access through a computer, and not something you hold in you hands and think, "Wow. Milt Kahl drew this. And now I am trying not to spill something on it." I know I'm not going to get better at traditional media if I don't actual try it, fail, succeed, and learn. So part of me was a little disappointed that I didn't risk it on this trip. Plus, using traditional media fosters a greater sense of "place." Knowing that I worked on this piece of paper at this place in the universe makes the art a bit more special than a file that just ends up in Google Drive. Anyways, I digress. You probably didn't come here to listen to me ramble about drawing mediums. Maybe you actually wanted to see some art.

So here's some art.

Sombrero Key Lighthouse

Many, if not most, of these were inspired by what's in animation called "color keys." Popularized by Pixar, these are small paintings which are intended to direct the color of a scene rather than the detail and design. I like to do them because they don't take a lot of time, and if the detail is off, eeeeehhhhh, just shrug and say it's a just a color key/sketch. Actually, don't say that. (personal pet peeve: calling something a "sketch" to lower the bar when in fact, the piece is not "a sketch." Just own it, people. The piece is probably good anyways.) I would love to do color keys professionally some day, but combining them all into a harmonious order called a "color script" seems baffling and something that takes guts.

 Snappers

I actually got to pet this manatee, who lived in a marina and was pretty scarred up

Many of these were also inspired by the art of Louie Zong, a man whose work has become increasingly influential to me over the past several months. His art has a lot of texture to it and good color sense all submerged in a childlike simplicity and innocence which I really appreciate. His work often gets very simplistic but somehow still feels professional ... needless to say I'm a fan, and am trying to incorporate some of his sensibilities into my own art. But at the moment, the most immediate thing you'll notice is quite a liberal use of Procreate's "Splatter" and my modified "Flicks" brushes.

Clownfish, Moon Jellies, and Sandbar Shark

I needed to use a pencil after sooo much digital art. Also, baby gators.

Sleeping Hawksbill Sea Turtle

In Key West, they have wild chickens that roam around town, just doin their thing. I've known several friends who kept chickens, but what surprised me most about the Key West chickens was watching the hens run around surrounded their chicks - back at home you usually just see the adults or mail-order chicks by themselves in a pen. So it was delightful to see these little families where everyone was all together! When I got back home I wanted to make a more stylized piece that reflected this memory (drawing on *heh* the art of Annette Marnat, thanks Naomi Bethel). This took a LOT longer than I expected but was a fun exploration into a new, soft, and even-more-texture-y style.

also took some cues from Audubon's Great American Hen and Young

Although I don't try to pressure myself to draw when I'm on vacation, it's nice when art like this spills out naturally! You may have implied from that statement that drawing often feels like work now, which is true. And although it's good work, work that makes me happy and time fly, I realized that I need to recapture that spirit of play, be willing to let pieces suck, and draw without reference... but that's likely a topic for another day. Be sure to check back here on the Roost for that! A lot is going on on my Instagram too - I'll be posting most of these pictures there and celebrating 500 followers! That's a big milestone, and I'm going to try to focus on being grateful for that rather than envious of 1000... let's see how that goes. ;) As usual, feel free to share Roost posts with your friends if you think they would be helpful. People really seemed to like the only "advice" post I have on here, and I plan on posting a few more tutorial kind of stuff here over the summer, so if there's a specific topic you want me to cover, let me know in the comments. 

Thankful for you guys, your readership, and your support! Hope your summer is off to a great start.

-dh


ALSO Music Recommendation for this week: I've been playing the BotW Hyrule Castle theme frequently to make everything seem more epic, maybe you would like a (Triforce of) Courage boost too? I finished BotW the week before the sailing trip and Man Was It Awesome. Storming the castle is so intense, especially when accompanied by this song. And for those Ambrosia fans out there, know that she participated in the final battle against Ganon! Very cool. Thanks Fujibayashi. More BotW art (and Ambrosia art???) to come during Zeldathon this June 13. 

woah that sounded official 

Natalie Nourigat at Lipscomb!

Every semester Lipscomb tries to get a notable person in the animation industry to come speak on campus. And by tries, I mean knocks it out of the park. For a small, liberal arts school in the middle of Tennessee, we’ve been able to get Aaron Blaise, John Musker, and Andreas Deja (wasn’t able to see that one cause I was in high school). It’s one of my favorite parts of the program, and the weekends when they come are always a little wild. Talks and workshops and Q&As drag on and on (in a good way), and all homework gets laid aside because an ANIMATION DEITY has graced us with their presence and everyone just wants to sit at their feet (metaphorically, don’t want to scare that guest away) hoping that their skill and success in some way transfers to us. It’s also a big moment for the southeastern animation community in general. There’s lots of new faces on campus and I’m surprised that the massive concentration of art nerds in one place doesn’t get the attention of the CIA or even a local newspaper. In short, it’s typically the best weekend of the semester. 

This past weekend we had Disney story artist Natalie Nourigat on campus! Natalie was our first notable guest who is fairly new to the industry, meaning that her talk went a bit differently than the other lectures I’ve been to. Usually the animators give a speech they’ve likely presented a few times before at conventions, talking about the stories from the many projects they’ve worked on across several decades. Although Natalie has traveled around the world and done a lot of great comic work, Ralph Breaks the Internet is her only current screen credit. So the talk naturally ended up being a little on the shorter side. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it allowed time for a nearly hour-long Q&A once she had finished speaking and pitching some storyboards. She fielded a lot of questions, some dealing with some particular storyboarding points, but most with more general topics of life as an artist. She also got a lot of difficult questions that I would have handed with a lot less tact, but that she took on gracefully. I remember one particular question about “finding your style” (something that I don’t think about and don’t want others to worry about) which prompted a really thoughtful answer that I could totally get behind. (The short answer being “draw in the styles you like, things will stick around and accumulate and that snowball will become your style.) 

This caricature doesn't really look like her, but here it is anyways.

Natalie describes her work as “participating in story rooms,” which I initially thought was a strange way to say “storyboarding.” But after her workshop, I discovered why she uses this particular wording. While teaching the animation majors about storyboarding on Saturday, Natalie was a lot more concerned with informing us about the non-drawing parts of the story process: team collaboration, idea generation, pitching, and serving the director’s vision. She compared being a story artist to being a menu, offering different suggestions to the director but leaving the ultimate decision up to them. I thought this was a great metaphor, and hearing it has helped me to be less protective of my storyboards and more willing to say no to boards as a director. 

This was also the most hands-on animation workshop I’ve been a part of. We started the morning with some improv games – definitely not what most of the students (and me) are used to but were fun nevertheless – and then got straight into storyboarding using the “Next 5” exercise. We all divided up into teams, each with a director and a set of story artists. Everyone was shown the same photo, which had to be the opening shot of a storyboard sequence. The story artists then drew five storyboards expanding on the photo and turning it into a complete story. We had to do all the drawings in 5 minutes with only a sharpie and paper! These storyboards were then pitched to the director, who used the material generated to direct the story team towards one consistent story idea, which everyone then boarded in 5 minutes (still using the photo as the first shot). And finally, the director pitched her favorite version of the sequence to the whole class. The director position switched around, so everyone had a chance to guide the story. When I do my storyboarding, I spend a lot of time thumbnailing and planning interesting compositions, so the time limit and inability to erase was really challenging to manage at first! But after a few tries I got more comfortable with confident lines and quick visual communication. Here’s an example of one sequence’s progression: 

The picture for this one was a guy walking down the street wearing some kind of giant paper mache animal head, perhaps as part of a parade.

This was my first suggestion to the director, imagining that the man was delusional and lived his entire life as a cat, wreaking havoc upon humans before being ousted by a man wearing a giant dog head.

The director liked another artist’s idea of the man wandering into a birthday party and being mistaken for a piñata. This was my take on that idea showing him getting lost from a parade, eventually being beat up by kids with bats in a cartoony dust cloud and then fleeing the mob.

And these were the final boards for the sequence I directed, which started out with a photo of a Buddhist monk looking up at a statue. I liked the idea of the statue coming to life and the introduction of a stray cat, so I combined the two in a battle of offerings (the monk offering material gifts and candles, the cat something a bit more simple and intangible). Naomi Bethel did these drawings, except for the last one which was done by Ashton Kate:

It was a really great weekend and very inspiring! I was most inspired by Natalie Nourigat’s commitment to quick life drawings in public spaces and cafes, and so I’ve been trying to do more work from life using ink. It’s been a really great way to resist the temptation to ctrl+z. Sorry Lipscomb friends and strangers, you’re about to get drawn! Here’s one of my communications professor, Prof. Prill: 

Hope you guys are doing well! I’m about to reach spring break, which promises lots of time for personal work, and maybe Zelda: Breath of the Wild??? I’m not going anywhere, but I’m going to try to make it fun and meaningful nevertheless! 

-dh

P.S. I have been playing a LOT of the new Smash Bros recently – here’s a really cool jazz cover of its menu theme. I don’t know how many people care for video game jazz covers, but I for one am a Big Fan.