Today,

I worked on my website from 8am on. And I probably would have finished everything except the sketchbook pages by 10pm, so that I could move on to finishing editing my animations.

But,

Flash had other plans. And around 8pm, decided to corrupt my file. I've tried everything. My back up copy on my external harddrive was last saved Thursday night (well, around 5am Friday morning).

It's ok. I took a shower and calmed down. I think I'll put on The Little Mermaid and start redoing everything. And I think I'll wear comfy sweatpants and my cute new rainboots. And I'll stay up until I'm done.

I've had awful luck lately. Hopefully that will turn around when we find out about scholarship results.

Here's something pretty. The music video for "I Sing I Swim" by Seabear.

I hope your luck has been better than mine lately.

Character Study

My foundation color teacher, Barbara Chira, just posted a link to this on Facebook and I had to share it right away. It made me giggle.

In case you were wondering about the anatomy of cartoon characters, Michael Paulus has done the work for you in his Character Study. I think my favorites are Dexter and the Bubbles. So silly!

Friday.

Lately I've been feeling really overwhelmed with all of my projects. As it turns out, 18 credit hours is a lot when 4 out of the 6 classes are studio classes. I've been doing alright all semester. It's just crunch time right now. I'm working on final projects, applying for scholarships and internships, and looking for more ways to make money to pay the rent. It's a little exhausting, especially when you don't have time to stop and eat, or, say, when you're up til 5:30 in the  morning, take a nap, then get up at 7:15am to start again.

This morning was CIA's Honorary Scholarship Competition. We had to set up all of our pieces to be judged, leave, then pick them up later. So I spent all of last night worrying that my hard work wouldn't show through. But after setting everything up in my studio (and even Febreezing it!), I felt a lot better. Last year, I competed as well, and felt I had no chance when I saw the work of my peers all laid out, but I ended up winning one! I won't find out about this year until April 30, so until then, I wait, pray, and appreciate the fact that I had one for this year.

So after running errands (and grocery shopping!), I am taking it easy so I don't overwork (too late) myself too terribly. I'll be working on my website tonight, hopefully finishing it by Thursday. Then tomorrow I'll hopefully finish editing my 2 animation shoots I did so far, so that I can pass them off to the musician.

And I have a feeling this week will be a million times better & less stressful. Partly because it shouldn't snow anymore (really, Cleveland?). And party because I am prepared for the rain. While in Target today I finally replaced my rainboots with these lovelies by Liberty of London! All of my boots got a little too beat up this winter, so my 2 pairs of snow boots, and my old rain boots were all cracked so I would have wet feet for 17 hours a day. So now I don't have to worry about that!

By the way, I am in love with everything by Liberty of London at Target. They just make me wish CIA was offering a repeat pattern design class again.

If only they made umbrellas!

Behind the Scenes Photos!

In case you were curious what went into creating images like these for my animation, I have the answer for you! Now you can see the wonderful yellow ladder that left my legs feeling like Jello.

I have been incredibly busy lately and am drowning in work. Between trying to edit my little butt of and pass off the .mov files to a musician, oh, and getting portfolio pieces together and designing dvd covers and menus for scholarship competitions, I haven't had too much time to eat! But yesterday I had a wonderful dinner, and hopefully I will be caught up (sort of) by tomorrow afternoon.

I have been so dependent on this lovely little planner and realized that I can't carry on conversations about work without a death grip on it. Maybe I'll post one of my overwhelming To Do lists. And yes, there are more than one. All organized. Into categories. Because I have that many.

Ps. Photos were taken by Jeff Mancinetti, the same guy who duct taped & tied and otherwise secured my camera for shooting and made sure everything worked.

Starving Artist.

I think I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. I have to finish my big animation (see pictures here!). I have to shoot about 3 minutes of stop motion for my documentary. I have to finish my website. I have to start 3 minutes of animation (including some hand drawn rotoscoping) for a collaboration with a dancer. And I have an 8 page paper due in less than 4 weeks that I need to start doing research for.

I'm going to go get some food now. My first real meal in days. I don't have time to eat lately.

Here are some pretties that cheer me up.

This photo.

This birdcage.

This bicycle.

This dress.

This picnic.

& this collage.

Breath, Michaela. In. Out.