Summer, Summer, Summer-Time!!!

I found it incredibly difficult not to title this post through way of a Will Smith tribute, so... thats what I did. Anyway, this is my way of marking the start of my summer sabbatical, in which I plan to use my time in order to complete both the Summer Project and build upon my areas of weakness so that I don't come into the second year feeling as if I've landed on another planet.

The Summer Project
For my Summer Project, I randomly selected Soundscape 28 from the Mysterious Blue Box (unfortunately, not the TARDIS...). To my immediate delight, it was a fast-paced, playful, Jazz piece, reminiscent of the work of Glenn Miller and Dave Brubeck.
Now, I say immediate delight, as I have reached a point where my brain is struggling to conjure anything that isn't strikingly cliche or expectant of the music, making things a little more difficult. When I hit these walls, I tend to draw up a mindmap of various initial options and ideas and go from there, and that is exactly what I have done.

Whilst I have many smaller ideas, I am yet to land on anything that I want to go ahead with, but given the time we have to complete this project, I'm not in a mad panic to come up with anything concrete just yet. I'll expose my brain to a plethora of culture over the coming weeks and see if anything comes from that.


Other Plans for the Summer
Coinciding with the project, I also want to use this time to improve upon my fairly lackluster illustrative and painting skills. I practice often, but because I don't specifically know what I want to be better at, I tend to lose focus of my actual goal. Because of this, I have decided to literally start from scratch, practicing all the little exercises that anyone completely new drawing and painting would (especially painting, as my abilities just aren't there at all). I also found a nice little 30 Day Drawing Challenge that I intend to stick to, which is a slightly more entertaining method of keeping me practicing.

Hopefully, following these minor exercises daily for the next few months will ultimately lead me to improving my skills in the long term (which will make the second year go a lot smoother, as I won't be constantly battling my lacking skill set).
In terms of Maya, I intend to dabble a fair bit with some Digital Tutors tutorials, once I have Alan's tutorials out of the way, as well as having a go at learning the basics of Houdini, at the recommendation of Pete Wallace.

Overall, it looks to be a busy summer (if I stick to it!), but I would hate for it to be a slow one, so bring on the work!!!