Tiny Spider In My Teapot

The story you are about to read is true, and has happened....


...a few minutes ago.

TINY SPIDER IN MY TEAPOT

A tiny spider found a home
in my smallish yellow pot.
Opening the teapot's lid,
I have freaked the spider out.
In a frenzy to escape,
dodging shadows, dodging light,
in silly circles he did run,
the tiny spider in my pot.
As I brought the kettle over,
boiling water in to pour,
I noticed the tiny spider
and of one thing I was sure;
a tea bag will serve me better
on this tired autumn's day.
So, I closed my teapot's lid
and took the kettle far away.
Tiny spider in my teapot,
your useless struggles were hard to see,
because today, oh tiny spider,
we resemble Fate and me.

© Mili Fay Art

CHOIR PRACTICE

I went to choir practice for the first time in two years last night.

(For those of you who do not know this, I managed to bend my vocal cords by not breathing properly, and speaking using my throat muscles rather than my diaphragm. At the time I was under so much stress, and dealing with grief over my grandfather's death, that I was breathing really shallow for months. I had a sore throat all the time, and I could barely speak, let alone sing--I sounded as if someone was strangling me while I tried to talk.)

So, choir practice.

I am a first soprano (meaning I sing the highest of the high notes), but I have had no formal training. As a kid my parents could afford only one extra curricular activity and I chose art. Therefore, I know nothing about technique and I cannot read music; I can follow rhythmically, but I have no idea how high or low a specific note sounds.

Last night, everything was going well. As we were warming up with some vocal exercises, I concentrated hard on breathing with my diaphragm, and not using my throat muscles at all. However, as more time passed I realised that last night I was going to be one of only two sopranos present, and the ONLY first soprano.

I was terrified.

I am in a choir for a reason. I sing by memorising the melody of other singers. I need a trained soprano to pick out the tone, and then I latch on to it like a leech and follow along. I do not have the confidence to be a soloist, especially after not singing for two years, and as I already mentioned I cannot read music, but last night I had to do both!

I couldn't concentrate on breathing, and I was so nervous that my breathing became automatically shallow. I tried to pretend that I was alone practicing, and sometimes I managed, but I could feel my throat muscles constricting more often than not. It also did not help matters that the soprano bit for the music we were singing was opera singer high. Most of the notes were in the second octave from the middle C (the middle of the piano), and several times I had to sing G5. Trust me that is high for sustained singing. Even "Think of Me" does not have that note in the song, Christine only goes higher at the very end, but that is vocalised, without a lyric, which is easier.
(Note: Sarah Brightman I think sang G6 when she performed in Toronto.)

My fellow soprano did not even bother to sing the highest notes, so I had my solo there and I think I sounded too much like a train whistle, since my fear was choking me.

Conclusion: I have to get some training.

I will look into finding myself a coach, as soon as my work load is easier. Until then, hopefully I can do something with the CD exercises I picked up a few years ago.

Now, I'm off for a walk, since I'm sick of being shut indoors.

Later!

M

PROJECTS, PROJECTS, PROJECTS...

Well, who would have thunk it, but the moment I returned from my surprise vacation, a few interesting job opportunities landed on my desk.

This of course means that I will have to postpone my own book yet again.  However, these new projects are something I just could not say "no" to.

The first is a job for a friend.  He came up with an amazing new card game, and he wants me to design the cards.  This is another one of those jobs where I will get paid only if the game sells, but I believe in my friend, and I feel this is a reasonable risk to take.  Since these images are supposed to be very graphic, I taught myself some Adobe Illustrator, and borrowed the program so that I could finish the job.  In the past, I have worked exclusively with Photoshop, but I think Illustrator is better for graphic images, because it gives you wonderful crisp lines, and the zoom function is next to endless.  I completed most of my images using the Pen Tool, and some simple shapes tools.  The next bit will be trickier, because I have to draw figures, and I'm not sure how to "clean-up" in Illustrator, but hopefully I'll figure it out.

Unfortunately, I cannot post the images here, because they are game sensitive.  However, once the game is printed I will definitely post some advertising.

The second job is something I have been waiting for so long, that I cannot believe I actually got it.  Thank goodness for connections.  What I need to do is illustrate a reconstructed scene of an ancient bridge ruin, and make it look like it was back in 105 A.D., as well as a portrait of the Roman Emperor Trajan and Apollodorus (the architect).  Do you know where these illustrations will appear?

National Geographic!

OMG!

I'm almost expecting some sort natural or unnatural disaster to happen and squish this opportunity as well.

I've been working my but off, since I finished school and so many projects I've done have come to nothing, that I'm starting to believe I'm cursed.  What good is my talent, if only a small circle of individual ever gets to see my work.

I'm impatient for my career to begin, not just to have work.

Seeing as how this is the biggest job I have ever had, I'm determined to create something so magnificent that people in posterity would seek out those images.

The article should appear in February and I have to get everything done by December.  I've e-mailed very rough images for inspection (very rough--hopefully they will not look at them and think I'm incompetent, but I do not see the point in wasting time on creating several images if they will only choose one--if they need me to create several beautiful mini images, I will do so, but it's waste of time and money).  Hopefully, I did not make a mistake :-I.   So far, my roughs have worked OK with other clients, but THIS IS NG!

I think I fainted a little bit.

So, the article will be published in Easter Europe (since that is where the bride is), and if it gets a good rating (4/5 stars) they will publish it in all the magazines around the world.  The text is really well written, and I will make the illustration so amazing that everyone will just have to have it.

So...

Wish me luck!

On another note, this past Friday, I spent the entire day in front of my computer watching the Free International Freelancer Day Conference.  It was amazing!  I got quite a few excellent tips, and some sources for further study.

I'm dreadfully behind on my Art Help blog, but I hope I can write another article soon.

Tomorrow I'm meeting my fellow IDE members to discuss our fantasy writing.  The way we are going, I think I will have my book edited in about 5 years. :-)  However, I love those ladies, and my fantasy book is the one thing I will not rush.  I love that story so much, and I want everyone who reads it to see it the way I do, and at the moment my writing is just not matching my vision as well as it could.

Well, this has been a long post.  Thank you for reading it.

Love,

M

Meet Nini!

In honour of my sister's birthday I created a new character for my Horsing Around Series.  Of course, a print will not be available for sale until I'm able to create a watercolour drawing.

Nini is an aspiring vet, who is always there to fix all the hurts, kiss them and make them better.

M

Legend of Korra Character Design: Fun Pack

****Fun Pack link found at the end of this post.****

For those of you who know me, or at least for those of you who have bothered to read my biography, you know I wanted to be an animator.  Since I was 12 all I ever wanted to do is classical animation.  If you are familiar with the classical animation industry that statement may mean that I wanted to do anything from conceptual work to final painting of the cells, or even post production.  However, when I say "classical animation", I mean classical animation--I wanted to sit 16 hours/day, making characters move with the help of loose sheets of paper and my beloved blue pencil.

However, since classical animation virtually vanished in my second year of college (there are still some positions over seas), I turned to illustration and other traditional art jobs.  After a lot of soul searching, I discovered that I like to draw (traditionally) even more thank I like to animate.  It is a shame really, since my teachers did tell me that I had a natural ability for animating: rhythm and timing came easily, and any issues I had had to do with my lack of drawing ability at the time.

In all the years since college, there was not a single job opening that tempted me to give up building my personal career to work in an animation studio.  That is, not until recently.

By accident I came across a Character Designer position for the sequel to my favourite animated series ("Avatar: The Last Air Bender"--if you have not seen it--do), "The Legend of Korra".  Well, I knew I would always regret not trying out for that position, so I rolled up my sleeves and worked my ass off for three days, trying to create an impressive portfolio.

I only had three days, because my friends have invited me to visit PEI, a place I wanted to see since I first saw "Anne of Green Gables" when I was a little girl.

Why didn't they advertise that job opening a month earlier?  Then I would have given it my all, but no matter how much I wanted to work on that show, I could not say no to visiting PEI.  I may never have another chance to visit the island, and the probability of me getting the character animation job was not high.

As it turns out, it was pretty much non-existent, but I'll write more about that later.

So, for those three days I delved into the world of animation, trying to learn the character style, and draw with the economy of line, something I have not needed to do for years.  I loved it!  I had so much fun, even though I could not get the style quite right (Avatar is very detailed and angular, while I've been drawing simplified round forms).  I did create a number of decent drawings, and any artist who looked at them could have seen that I had the ability to do the work with competence.  (The problem with art jobs is that Human Resources has a first pass at your portfolio and application, and unless you make them happy your work may never be viewed by an artist at all.)

On the day I was supposed to leave for PEI, I tried submitting my portfolio online, but there were all these glitches.  I would try to upload the "release form", and my resume would vanish, or my personal information would be deleted, or one of my schools would disappear.  Since my time has run out, I submitted the thing as best as I could, aware that my "release form" did not go through, and I enlisted my sister's help in submitting the form if she could.

Upon my return, I went back to the submission site, attempting to figure out what was wrong with it.  Then, as I finally read Terms of Service, I discovered that I had to be a US citizen to use the site.

I'm Canadian.

I was planing of creating a flat book and submitting it physically to the animation studio, but in the mean time the position has been filled out.  In the future, I will submit a portfolio for that show.  Who knows, they may need someone to work on characters for the following season?

However, clearly it is time for me to refocus on my own work and finish AIMH.  Not to mention that I've gotten another job--designing game cards.

So, all that is left for me to do is bid goodbye to the animation field again, and post a link to the artwork I created here for your examination.

What you will see by clicking on the link below is a website version of what we in college called a Fun Pack--a fun pack is a collection of sketches and artwork suggesting the design for the film, with the full knowledge that the designs have not yet reached their final state.

I forget what they call the final booklet with "on-model" designs.  Maybe "Design Manual"?

Anyway, here is the link:

http://artofmili.ca/Character_Design_Portfolio/Character_Design_Portfolio_Welcome_Page.htm

Enjoy!  And, as always, comments are welcomed and appreciated!

Mili

Please note that I sketched in Korra for reference, to see if my designs can stand with her, however, she is not one of my designs--she is copyrighted by Nickelodeon.  Everything else is mine.  :-)