The price of fish

I once saw a cartoon of the Mona Lisa halfway through completion with numerous badly drawn hands scribbled out and the words 'Dammit! dammit! dammit! written across it. (If I could find it I would have posted it) I think I had an episode of that this morning when the pencil tool in Flash was picking up every single wibble better than any seismometer ever could. Software flaws instill a fear in me of it leading to something much bigger and irreversible. Crisis averted now though.

Spent a lovely weekend in London with an old and dear friend, we managed to see Studio Ghibli's latest film, Ponyo, an expensive viewing as the only cinema showing the subtitled version was in Leicester Square. But it was a beautiful and well observed little film with some really good prehistoric fish. I also managed a trip to the Tate Modern which always takes me back to school days, no big sculpture in the entrance hall this time sadly and I wasn't overly excited by any of the exhibitions. (Except for the interactive quiz in which several under 10's beat me in a Lichtenstein paint the dots game) I do enjoy their book shop though and they always have a fantatsic array of children's books which made me want to start drawing properly again.


Lately I have been working on a 40 second intro for Mo which has been moving along nicely. Not quite as quickly as I had hoped but bits of it are moving now at least. Here is a screen grab (or as Laura says 'screen moment') from what i'm working on this very second. From the very beginning:

Also popped into Aardman last week to catch up with people and saw a nearly finished version of Blind Date, (a short directed by Nigel Davies) It is looking beautiful and I'm pleased to have got the chance to work on it.

Finally a massive congratulations to Emma Lazenby (of Arthur Cox Ltd) on her Bafta win for her film Mother Of Many! A fantastic film about midwiffery.

Dinosaurs in Exeter

Returned yesterday from Dinnersaurs' first (and hopefully not last!) festival. In Exeter. I have never been to Animated Exeter before despite it being rather close to home. It was a nice excuse to go and combined it was a rare visit to the home farm. It is a rather lovely little festival. Dinnersaurs was well received which was lovely and made me feel pleasantly nautious inside. Especially as it being my first film since graduation it felt a bit more personal. We pottered around town for a bit on the Sunday after eating a rather luxurious cupcake. On returning to Bristol I realised how much colder it was in Devon.

I really hope it gets into some more, it would be nice to go to some festivals and have something to talk about!