JustEleanor has been doing her own interpretations of classic book covers. I was asked to bring a little extra life into the artwork. Here’s an example of “A Farewell To Arms” by Ernest Hemmingway. It’s a very moving story.
Thursday is almost Friday and that’s almost the weekend. Get yourself a sweet treat for you and the sweeties in your life today. Y’all deserve it!
I love cycling and July is a special month for cyclists because it means that it’s time for the Tour de France. Both men’s and women’s races take place during the month, although with staggered starting dates and for different durations. The racing looks beautiful with the backdrop of different French regions and mountain ranges. There’s also the human drama with stories of champions, underdogs, legends, and legends in the making. If you’re curious to learn more and experience some of the thrills there is a wonderful documentary series available on Netflix called “Tour de France: Unchained” (crudely translated from the French title “Tour de France: Au Coeur du Peloton” or In the Heart of the Peloton).
My wife and I had the privilege of taking a self-guided bicycle tour of France several years ago. The luxurious fabled time before children. Unfortunately, it was not during July so seeing le Tour first hand wasn’t possible. However, we did get to ride some of the classic terrain that the race visits often. Afterwards we came home and collaborated on a series of art prints based on what we saw and experienced. I made some translations of these pieces as looping animations. Here’s one of those pieces inspired by riding through fields of lavender. I can still remember how it smells.
Rainy days can be frustrating. They can steal your joy. Maybe rainy days even make you feel a little bit sick, but they can be beautiful too. What do you do on a rainy day? How do they make you feel?
Most of the animation projects I’ve done recently have utilized older comic strips that I’ve made or friends have made. I felt it was important to not fuss over drafting the story, character design, etc. and focus on the animation. Just get to business! This was also my solution for killing procrastination. For a while, this seemed like a fun way to generate content and practice different skills (SPOILER: I’m not a trained animator). The drawback has been that the style hasn’t changed much and the type of directing, framing, and pacing were very similar. It felt like I needed to change things up and try a different challenge.
I’m an avid anime and manga consumer. At night, when I have trouble sleeping, I’ll watch anime since with the sound off and the subtitles on. Maybe I’m a bit more focused on what I’m seeing and I absorb things differently. One day I sat down and started making an animatic from scratch of an action sequence inspired by anime (well actually, it’s more like a portion of a scene). No big plan, just winging it. After reading about the movie production process of “Flow” I felt empowered. Here’s the rough animatic so far…
I became “Mr. Dalkner” for a ’25 Spring semester afterschool club at my children’s school. The club was called Comicbook Clubhouse and included nearly 40 kiddos from grades 2nd through 6th (half of which were 2nd graders). That’s a lot of energy to try and manage! The focus was to read, create, and share comic books. There was a small library of used comics and graphic novels to read and plenty of supplies to create with. Each session started with a prompted drawing. “Fill a page with…” you in the future, or bugs but big, or what you’ll do on your summer vacation, etc. Then I would present a small slide show preparing them for the project of the day. During the semester we tackled projects like making comic strips, jam comics, comic lettering, designing characters, making covers and splash pages, directed drawings, and finally constructing a ‘zine style comic book. I wound up creating a whole series of lesson plans and this became more of a serious thing than I probably should have. I’m quite proud of the kids and what they accomplished and I’m very fortunate to have other parents as volunteer helpers. Without their help things would have very easily gone off the rails. I’m planning on running the club for the ’25/’26 school year. Wish me luck!
The school’s mascot is a hawk so I drew a little character for the club promos.
Short animation that was used on the school’s Instagram account announcing the start of the club.
A reminder animation used on the school’s Instagram.
Another pass of rough animation and adding a second character. If you’ve followed some of the prior posts you may remember the image this is referencing.
On to the next thing…
This guy loves dogs. I mean REALLY loves them. Maybe you’re this guy? Perhaps someone you know is this guy? If so, I hope y’all find some dogs to dote upon today!
I’ve been meaning to learn Adobe After Effects for quite some time but never found the time. In the spirit of the “summer enrichment” routine that I’ve been putting my kids through (online assignments, Duolingo, and many library visits) , I finally prioritized the undertaking. Since I already had assets available for the social media managing I do for my bike polo club it seemed like a fun and convenient subject to use. Here are three social spots I made to promote the club.