Red Bull Art of Can Competition.

Artists from all over Trinidad submitted artwork featuring Red Bull's iconic can to enter the annual Art of Can creative competition. The local leg of the award ceremony was held at The Corner Bar in Woodbrook, where Dave Cooper's Michael Jackson piece won. My piece 'D Pan Man' came in fourth. The four selected pieces represented Trinidad in the Red Bull competition in Jamaica. The images below are from the night at Corner Bar.

The four artist whose work represented Trinidad at the Red Bull Art of Can in Jamaica. The exhibition ran from October 1st-11th.

Small Ting to the World!

The animation reaching places that i can't reach yet!! In July it was screened in Caribbean Tales Film Festival in Canada. This was the first time my animation made it in a Film Festival outside of Trinidad so that was big for me.

Apparently the response was good because a few weeks later I was contacted (via Facebook) by a guy who saw the animation in the film festival and was interested of making it a part of a Caribbean Short film showcase that would be screened in Rode Loper Film Festival in Amsterdam and the Shoot Me Film Festival in Hague. His name is Emiel Martens, the Executive Director of Caribbean Creativity, an organization that promotes creative expression from the Caribbean. Yuh done know i was all for that so I send my stuff to him and that was that. Small Ting becoming ah Big Ting!!

Caribbean Creativity Flyer


Emiel Martens and Douwe Dijksterhuis from Caribbean Creativity

The Table in front of the screening tent with information about the Caribbean showcase.
(yuh see d little postcard with d octopus on it, that was done by Luis Vasquez for Animae Caribe. D thing reach Netherlands Big up Yuhself !)

A screen shot of my animation in the Shoot Me Film Festival.

Small Ting Mentality gets an Award

Animae Caribe Animation and New Media Festival has always been a outlet for local and Caribbean animators to get their work out there. I entered my animation in the 2008 animation festival with hopes of just getting my work screened and seeing the crowd's response. I was extremely pleased to find out at the end of the festival that i won the 'Most Outstanding Caribbean Animation' in the festival.


I still believe that i am not an animator i am just someone who enjoys creating animations.

Small Ting Mentality

The creation of the animation "Small Ting Mentality" has been a real challenge for me, from learning Anime Studio in a few weeks to trying to figure out After effects. I enjoyed it thoroughly. This is it check it out.

Small Ting Mentality from Seon on Vimeo.

Anti-Smelter

The anti- smelter uprising in Trinidad was a serious and major issue in 2007 and I took this opportunity to express my views visually through my work. I experimented with everything from propaganda posters to animation and even chalk art. I was very serious about most of the issues I dealt with in my work but overall I was just trying to have fun.



This piece entitled 'Stop D Smelter' was created in Photoshop and Illustrator. I enjoyed do this piece and the comical image of 'Uncle Patos' helped it even more. At the time i was researching a lot of Soviet union propaganda posters and i got inspired.


Chalk art has always been an integral part of Animae Caribe and i have enjoyed creating unique pieces. This was done at UWI for the festival.




Graphite animation created in Photoshop, Premiere and Crazy talk. Just experimenting.

The Beginning of Small Ting!!!

Now how i came about creating this animation is a crazy story in itself. It was final year UWI, film and video class, and i had to produce a three minute piece for my final assignment. I knew i wanted to create an animation but was not sure what to do. 'Thank god for weird coincidences because if it was not for Taharqa Obika and our collaboration, the Small Ting Mentality animation would be non existent. I met him in the computer labs at UWI, where he overheard me talking about my project and then he introduced himself as a storyteller trying to get his work out there. After that we just clicked, i brought up the idea of taking one of his stories and animating it and he was cool with it. You can join his group on facebook here.



So these are my preliminary sketches of the main character. I final design was created in Anime Studio which was also the program i used to animate the character. The drawings below are caricatures of the storyteller. Photoshop was used to color the drawing.

T-shirt Hustle!!

While I was at UWI ah brother had to make some money so I found someone who was interested in getting some carnival designs for screen printing so I created some options for her. She ended up just choosing one design but it was all good because i got some decent experience designing T-shirts. Illustrator was used to created all the designs and they are all original pieces not vectors downloaded from the Internet and placed together.

Carnival Imps

I remember this like if it was yesterday. We had to make a sculpture of a carnival character out of foil paper...............yes foil paper!!!! So I chose the Imps. So what i did was crumpled the foil and constructed the basic form and then i covered it with a thin layer of kite paper. Then I finished it with pieces of materials i had left back from another project. I think the gold axe was foil i got from some chocolate i was eating at the time.

My first abstract piece

Now I never particularly enjoyed creating abstract work but when i was introduced to cubism........ Well i tell you it was something i grew to love. This was another assignment that was given in the second year of my degree. The composition is actually a compilation of various cans, bottles and juice cartons. I made some sketches, mixed some paint, rustled up some canvas and painted this. I really love this piece.........something about the composition and the colors. (completed 2006)

Potato Head gone Mad!!!

This piece was for an assignment I did in year one of my visual arts degree. I had to incorporate wire, paper and plaster paris to create a sculpture. It was comming down to the end of the semester and I was really frustrated so i just translated this to my work. I decided to do this figure with just a head and feet, screaming!!! Because that was exactly how i felt!!! Later on i realised it was like a potato head, remember that plastic toy that you could take apart. Any way i had fun making this one and especially the reaction on my mothers face when she saw it next to her washing machine staring her down, priceless!!!

3 Dimentional Form

Sculpture has always been another early passion of mine but it proved to be a bit more challenging and time consuming than painting. This sculpture, which was named "Man vs Technology" was constructed using antiprisms made out of aluminium sheeting. I used cement for the hand which was not my preferred choice but i used what i had at the time. The concept was birthed out of my need to find out who was really in control 'Man of Technology'. Obviously most people would say man because we are the creators, but some hold to the view that the very existence of it shapes the way we live our lives. So 'who running things!!!' well to tell you the truth i was not sure so i left up to the viewer to decide. Is the robot stamping the hand into the ground and showings it's authority or is the hand, which represents man, supporting the figure so it would not tilt over? You decide!!!
(completed in April 2005)



The process was very important in the development of the final sculpture. I paid close attention to proportion by creating a prototype to scale and then scaling it up to the actual size but using cardboard instead. This was just to make sure that I had the correct balance and shapes needed to make the final sculpture.

Genesis

These pieces are from my beginnings as an artist. They were actually final assignments for my visual arts certificate at The University of the West Indies (2004/2005). This was my foundation, my first serious introduction into the creation of art. I produced some of my best work back then. Good Times!!!