Merry Sandy Christmas!

For all of you out there who stumble upon this blog, I hope you find the deep, deep depths of joy and love in your New Year. Merry Christmas from me and the sandy fish!

This animation was made with recycled and reclaimed footage from the past year of sandy animation. 

Advent Animation 2012

It's that time of year again! In eager anticipation and preparation for Christmas, I have revived my #adventanimation tag on twitter  Each day I"m sharing a new holiday animation - some are quirky, some are sweet, some are funny, some are visually stunning. Here's a taste of a few of them. If you like these, just follow me over to twitter!

My favorite, thus far is Marzipan Reindeer from emerging artist Holly and the Wolf. The weird and wild animation is by Tony Johnson.


I also love these pohutukawa loops made by David Montgomery. The pohutukawa trees are native to New Zealand. They bloom with red flowers at Christmas, in the midst of the southern summer. These abstractions of the blooms are just stunning.



Anyone who's had a bit too much Glüwein while strolling the Weihnachtsmarkt will relate to this little piece from MOKOST


And, one of my favorite ones from last year - the singing hedgehogs - a youtube extravaganza. Watch out! This one will timesuck the rest of your day away!

More awesome advent animation in the days to come. Head over to twitter to get the latest!

Advent Animation

'Tis the season for animated holiday greetings! I've been collecting them and am creating an animated advent calendar, highlighting one holiday-themed short a day until Christmas. To keep up with the fun, follow #adventanimation on twitter or just check out my FB wall.

Day 14 - Impossible Present by Royale

P.S. I got a late start on this, so you'll only find spots from Dec 14th on! Next year will be better!

A White Sand Christmas

It seems like the whole world is getting snowed on this Christmas season. A few days ago, Aspen welcomed winter with 13 inches of fresh snow on the slopes and more to come. This short sand animation is the first work made entirely in my new studio. With all the recent snow bogging down holiday travel plans and turning the skiers into powderhounds, it seemed appropriate to use sand to create an animated snowstorm and bring a little sunshine to the Christmas weekend. I hope wherever you are, you are spending the holidays with warmth in your heart if not in your hands!

Merry Christmas!

To Women (and Men) of Vision

Joy and Peace to all those special people in our lives! I send you this recent project as an animated Christmas greeting and as that you pass it along to the women and men who inspire you!

This was a delightful project. Women of Vision is a volunteer ministry of World Vision, a Christian relief and development organization, which equips women to serve impoverished and oppressed women and children worldwide. WoV seeks to educate and inspire women to action in an effort to alleviate the injustice and inequities that exist for women and their families.

My inspiration was the Women of Vison logo.

The design seemed to dance, even before it was animated. We wanted to convey the feelings of Joy, Laughter and Unity as women around the globe join together to bring peace and relieve to the oppressed.

The music was composed specifically for the piece by Salvador Santana. You may recognize that last name, but this young musician is making his own way in the world. Listen to more of his work and find out where he and his band are playing next on his website.

Basalt Blizzard

A very merry Yuletide from the Roaring Fork Community! This weekend was the annual YuleFest, an art and food fair benefitting Basalt High School, here in our new home. To join in the fun, I set up an Animation Station – a booth where anyone could stop by and spend a few minutes creating stopmotion. It was a great hit. Over the course of the day, about 50 people contributed to one continuous film and we ended up with over 2 minutes of animation! It was a fantastic way to pull people out of shopping mode and allow them to contribute to a project bigger than any one person. Now that’s true Yuletide spirit!

Our wintery theme was the Basalt Blizzard. The process was simple: visitors could either create their own snowflake to add to the blizzard or use one of the ones I had made.

Most of the adults were a little intimidated by the crafts and opted to use the provided materials, but the kids loved cutting and decorating their own snowflakes!  

Once the snowflakes were ready, we moved them over to the animation station and made them dance! I captured the frames on my computer so everyone could see their handiwork immediately. A few people were a little skeptical about their ability, but once they started moving the snowflakes around under the camera and saw how easy animation can be, I had no trouble convincing them to continue. In fact I think some of the adults were having more fun animating than the kids! Though the snowflakes were the stars of the show, I had a few other holiday props to add to the animation: m&m’s candy canes, Hershey’s kisses, ribbons and bows. Of course, by the end of the day all the kisses and m&m’s had mysteriously disappeared! I certainly saw some creative flashes of brilliance in the process. I hope to find some venues to host some animation workshops in the near future. There certainly were some promising students in the crowd.

All the donations from the project went directly to the Basalt H.S. Leadership fund which sponsors clubs and activities at the school. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and I hope to see you again!

Merry Christmas from the Big Blue Lake!

I'm back in Tahoe for the winter animating away. Enjoy this holiday card, share it with your friends and look for more to come in the new year!