Here is the completed film from the children's animation workshop that I hosted last Saturday. It was one of a series of workshops that took place as part of the Inbetween Animation Festival (put on by the Cincinnati Film Society).

The workshop was a lot of fun and a lot was accomplished in just two hour's time. Registration for the event sold out, so almost twenty children (ages 7-15) got to participate, many of which were experimenting with animation for the first time. The new portable, lightweight lightboxes for traditional hand drawn animation (for future Floating Shape Workshop events) also made their debut, and were a big hit. On this same Vimeo channel, you can also see the flipbooks that we made & filmed during the workshop.

Also, as I was cleaning up the room from my workshop, my friend Tracy Miller-Robbins began setting up for her workshop which proceeded mine. It was called "Animated Drawings" (ages 16+), and she was hosted it with her husband Rob. They also do children's workshops together as well (Cartwheel Animation Studio). Check out the awesome results from their workshop, too ...

Found this old, unfinished painting in the studio recently. It was for the Bowie tribute at the Thunder-Sky gallery two years ago. I ended up going with other ideas (such a fantastic show!), but this was an idea to design a theatrical poster for "Life on Mars" (the show referenced in the song). Sidenote: how has it already been two years since the death of Bowie?

As part of the inaugural Inbetween Animation Festival taking place in Cincinnati on April 14-15, I am excited to be hosting a youth animation workshop. Due to the nature of this workshop, it will be for ages 7-15, and space is limited (registration is required).

This is a special workshop for the festival that I am holding individually (independent of FSW), and will take place from 10am-12pm on April 14th ($20 registration required). My friend and fellow animator/educator Tracy Miller-Robbins is also holding a workshop called "Animated Drawings" (ages 16+). See an overview of all of the workshops (for all ages) happening here. The screening of the films at the festival will be taking place the following day on the 15th at the Esquire Theater. 

Registration for the workshop is available here via the Cincinnati Film Society.

UPDATE: All spots are full for the workshop! Thanks and I'll see you on the 14th!

In honor of Opening Day, here are some 1962 gouache paintings by one of my favorite artists, the late Bill Charmatz.

The new Yo La Tengo record is incredible. This should surprise no one at all, but I felt the need to say/draw it anyway.

On Saturday, I hosted a wonderful, all-ages Floating Shape Workshop at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

All-ages events are always some of my favorite, because while FSW is primarily a children's workshop, seeing families attend and animate together can be a very beautiful sight and experience. Sometimes, the biggest smiles can come from parents/adults when they end up surprising themselves by making an incredibly fluid flipbook and then film it to see it play back on the screen. One family of four at this event each created their own flipbook & short cutout/claymation experiment. Excellent!

Also, before the event got underway, the workshop attendees got a brief guided tour of some animation-centric photography exhibits in the museum. The museum currently displays Eadweard Muybridge's sprawling 1877 "Panorama of San Francisco", and of course we then got to look at the classic "animation locomation" examples via the zoetrope.

It was a truly fantastic and unique workshop. Thank you to the Art Museum and their Rosenthal Education Center space for having me, I hope to do it again in the future.

... and here were the flipbooks that were made at the workshop (the first hour was flipbooks, the second was experimenting with 2D and stop motion methods). I love the spontaneity in the results when you give both children and adults blank flipbooks and see what they come up with. From bouncing balls to an anti-pollution message to a shark eating a boat to an anthropomorphic slice of pie.