With the new year I've been adamant about giving my life a good ol' 360 turnaround. Several of my many goals aren't quite there yet, such as cutting back on coffee + beer, while others have been a successful whirlwind (yay to full-time freelance). Regardless of those life changes, professionally I've felt stuck at a crossroads. While cleaning up my bloated hard drive, a hard to accept fact became relevant. I hadn't pursued personal projects in far too long, from lettering and typography to art direction. Chime in convenient timing, later that week Elle Luna's 100 days of making popped up in my feed giving the perfect deadline. During those days I'll pursue a variety of projects including lettering, editorial layouts and art direction. Hope to see you join in the making! :)

This weekend I was fortunate to have enough free time to start and tackle a Skillshare class. I've been eager to rekindle my After Effect's chops and Fraser Davidson's course offered the perfect challenge. After playing around and illustrating several music icons I ended up settling on Amy Winehouse giving her blues-y self a bit of glamour. The greatest obstacle I faced in this process was animating the limbs while maintaining correct proportions, something that I hope to improve on as I continue to practice these methods.

I highly recommend this class for both beginners and intermediate AE users who aren't familiar with executing this animation style. Looking forward to working up a few different characters and expanding these practices in the near future!

Coming soon – a pomegranate filled fall season.