Do it old school
When Emma was six or seven, we traveled to Israel to see our friend, Eliav, and his family. And to do some work there, of course. Let’s not forget the work. And the fact that Eliav’s wife, Chagit, can cook like nobody else. And that the strawberries are as big as your head. And that jeweler Ayala Bar has a shop in downtown Tel Aviv. But I digress because I’m writing this at the beach and have succumbed to an overdose of SPF 70 (which, by the way, doesn’t help AT ALL if you are Scotch Irish).
On the way home from Israel (see? I knew I could bring it back), Emma busied herself way above the ocean with one of her dad’s "genius books," as we call the tiny scribble filled notebooks he always has in his front breast pocket. A new notebook, she filled it up with little drawings of cats and dogs, drawn in such a way that when you flipped through the book, a story was told. A miniature flip book of a child. She worked all the way across the Atlantic on that book.
Fast forward ten years. First exposed to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) at a comics convention where several SCAD students reviewed her portfolio and taught me a big lesson, she has since dreamed of going there to study. Her chosen field? Animation. Old school animation, where each second of film takes at least 15 drawings (no, that’s not a typo). Not for the faint of heart.
"We had a choice," she explained, "and I wanted to learn how to do animation old school."
Yesterday we picked her up from a summer camp week at SCAD where she studied life drawing and animation, and navigated dorm life and fried food. An evening reception at Savannah Station showcased all the art created by teenagers in that week, from furniture and fashion design to photography and film. Emma looked cool in her vintage silk jacket from a consignment shop. We walked to the end of the gallery to a large TV screen. "This is my animation class’ work," she said, both proudly and nervously. "My movie is 4 seconds long!"
We waited, watching several other short (and by "short," I mean "beautifully short") movies. And then, hers. All 4.8 seconds of it, telling the tale of pollution and global warming, an earth saying "Save me."
"Did you see the polar caps melt?!" she asked excitedly. "YES!" I said, not knowing what she meant. I watched it again. Between seconds #3 and #4, watch the top of the earth’s forehead disappear.
She worked hard to do 46 drawings for that 4.8 seconds.
Am I a proud mother? You bet.
What would thrill her beyond belief? If you forwarded this post or the link to the video to all your friends and asked them to watch. She is shyly asking how many page views the video has had on YouTube since I uploaded it late last night. Can you watch it several thousand times and pass it along?
37days Do it Now Challenge
Do it old school. Draw it by hand. Make that cake from scratch. Eschew fast food for a week. Remember what it is to actually work through a process, not circumvent it (artistic or otherwise). Determine your story line and create sequential art to go along with it. Tell a story with your life. Find a young artist and support them in some important way.
