The Animation Art Auction

todays Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/sep/28/artists-artist-animators

Dinner with Mr.Lasseter

Had the pleasure of having dinner with John Lasseter ,his family and the lovely people from Disney Ireland, Brown Bag Films and IFTA on Monday night.

John told me he picked up a  copy of the The Secret of Kells Blu Ray in his local Barnes and Noble :)

Thanks to Trish Long for inviting me and to Darragh O'Connell for this nice snap!

Back to kecskemet

Today I am travelling to Hungary to serve on the jury for kaff - kecskemet films animation festival.
I look forward to meeting old friends from our time working with them ....

http://www.kaff.hu/news/show

gingerbread is ready...

http://www.todpolsonart.blogspot.com/




see if you spot any familiar faces in Tod Polsons latest masterpiece...

Watercolours

Its a bit amazing to me to still be regularly creating Secret of Kells artwork so long after production wrapped.
These are my favourites of the recent commissions and gifts I've painted.
Its very relaxing to create purely painted pieces - no photoshop! 
Theres still a long list of people I've promised to paint something for - please be patient folks!

St.Patricks day in Kilkenny

So ,while I was off in Washington the team here in Kilkenny had a great St.Psatricks day parade.
Christen Mooney who was the voice of Aisling , kicked off the parade dressed as Aisling surrounded by the bugs and bees from the forest.
We also had some cool wolves and Vikings cut-outs too.
Looks like fun , its a pity I missed it.

St.Patricks Day 2011

Well last year was pretty amazing and I'd thought this year things were gonna quiet down and go back to normality for a while.
Then this invite arrives .

You never you where you'll end up when you start making cartoons.

Folimage do it again

Just saw the new  film from Folimage.
Le vie de chat.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbc62e_une-vie-de-chat-trailer_shortfilms

I loved how the cezanne type styling was not confined to the backgrounds and how the characters movements and the storytelling itself was as stylised as the the backgrounds.
Fantastic stuff. Possibly the most visually daring animated feature I've seen in a long long time. The scenes in the complete dark with only white outlines showing the characters are really clever and the rendering on the characters is really lovely and organic with almost no evidence of the typical compositing tricks we are getting so familar with these days. Its a style we have never seen before on screen , telling a clever and sophisticated story using all the techniques and unique devices that animation can bring. Yet it could have been made at any time in the last 50 or 60 years and will surely not date as fast as this years shiny CG offerings.

Another masterful film showing yet again that the possiblities for graphic storytelling in 2d animation have barely
begun to be tapped.


Ahh how great it would be to live here in France where there is a culture that embraces such stylistic variations in feature films . Avignon has a great little cinema "Utopia" which had a full screening room today of all ages from kids to older folks enjoying this latest French opus.

Eclectic Micks

 The Eclectic Micks have invited me to join their merry band.
They are a group of talented Irish comic book artists who post daily sketches.
An honour indeed to be posting along side them.
This week they have a "Secret of Kells" theme-I made this tribute to Klimt as my first post on the blog.

http://eclecticmicks.blogspot.com/

Roger Eberts 2010 list of best animated films

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/01/the_best_animated_films_of_201.html