APW International Portfolio day is an opportunity for prospective animation students to meet one-on-one with animation professionals and educators and get feedback and expert advice on their animation and illustration school entrance portfolios.
Guest post by Bernadette Peets AOCA
I am in the unique position of having taught in the Sheridan College Art Fundamental’s Program for over 10 years, worked on the original committee that developed the Sheridan College VCA Program, taught Life Drawing For Animation in the APW program and am currently the acting Administrative Director of the Animation Portfolio Workshop.
I would like to share my thoughts (based on my first hand experience) on what I understand to be the major differences between the Sheridan Art Fundamentals Program and the Animation Portfolio Workshop Program with respect to preparing an animation portfolio to get into the Sheridan Animation Program.
On Friday, September 27th at Hashtag Gallery in Toronto the Animation Portfolio Workshop community was out in full force to celebrate 20 years with a bash and an art show. Drawings and artwork by past and present instructors and TA’s who have taught at APW over the years were on display. APW grads who have moved on to animation and art related careers, APW instructors and TA’s, friends and fellow animation educators all reconnected and caught up. An absolutely fantastic event.
Actually, it never really went anywhere. We know because at Animation Portfolio Workshop drawing is all we do. Artists and animators have never stopped learning and using the immense heft and power of visual language that is revealed in drawing. Ask any animator. Drawing has been the chosen method for developing ideas, building worlds, telling stories, designing and animating characters and creating/investigating visual styles for a long, long long time.
#SpiderVerse – Animating Miles
#SpiderVerse is now available on Blu-ray, DVD & 4K Ultra HD!
Posted by Sony Pictures Imageworks on Tuesday, March 19, 2019
In recent times drawing has takena back-seat to computers. The wide-spread popularity of the 3D look in movies has meant
Animation Portfolio Workshop has been privileged to enjoy the involvement of a number of experienced (and very generous) animation artists over the years who have taken time from their busy lives to take on the role of a special guest judge in our APW Character Design Contest. Back in 2014 Animation Portfolio Workshop had the pleasure of working with Charlie Bonafacio. It’s not everyday that a chance comes along for a beginner to have their drawings looked at by a former Disney animator
Originally from Monterey Mexico, Dani Elizondo is pursuing her animation dream. At the time of this post, Dani is working toward getting her BAA in animation at Sheridan College. Adding a thorough knowlege of traditional animation to her own love of stop-motion animation, puppet building, characters, stories and comic writing/illustration. Dani’s refreshing and personal sense of design and story stand out against the pervading styles that seem to reappear over and over again in mainstream animation.
“I came to Canada to learn how to draw so I could pursue my dream to get into animation school and become part of the animation industry.”
The entire Animation Portfolio Workshop team is over-the-moon excited for the 2019 Best Animated Feature film Oscar success of APW grad Patrick O’Keefe and his wonderful Art Direction on Sony Pictures Animation’s ground-breaking Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. Sony’s take on the Marvel Spider-Man story is creative twist signalling a very clear break from the current 3-d obsession in animation feature film fare. O’Keefe and fellow art director Dean Gordon creatively brought together
Werner Zimmermann’s central role in the training of young animation students in figure drawing and artistic anatomy for decades is well known by anyone in animation circles in Canada, USA and abroad.
In Bertrand Tavenier’s iconic film Round Midnight, (1986) the films main character Dale Turner, played by the great Saxophonist Dexter Gordon, says these very wise words at one point in the film while speaking about the development of a musician:
”You just don’t go out and pick a style off a tree one day -the tree is inside you, growing naturally”.
The same applies to visual artists as well. For now we’re going to let these wise words about style, where it comes from and how it grows, just linger on the page here.
Food for thought that we’ll address in upcoming posts.
Suffice it to say, there’s an awful lot of ‘picking a style off of someone else’s tree’ that goes on when it comes to the making of animation school portfolios these days…and we’ll revisit why we think this is, and what we do at APW to foster the opposite approach to senseless ‘stylistic appropriation’.
We’re proud of the work done by APW grads. After learning drawing fundamentals at APW, these young artists go on to hone their abilities in other schools and programs and then on to the animation biz here in Toronto and internationally. The 2019 Oscars are an opportunity for Animation Portfolio Workshop to salute Graham Finley and recognize his outstanding work.
“Learning how to draw was the most important thing that I’ve taken from APW”
Graham Finley – Animator Pixar
Graham has worked at Pixar on a number of Pixar films: Inside Out, Brave, Monsters University, Piper, and most recently, Incredibles 2. A successful animator, devoted to his craft and producing top-notch work.
