Steff Lee Studios: Kino Bino Animation Studio is born

Hi Everyone,

It’s Steff here! I wanted to write to update you all with some news!

From the summer of 2018, my partner, Jack, joined me in my animated business venture and I was able to expand Steff Lee Studios to take on larger projects. We have worked together on many projects over the years and our combined years of experience and strong team spirit have resulted in some amazing work. As a duo, we were now more than Steff Lee Studios so we had to put our heads together to come up with a new name.

In April 2019, we officially launched Kino Bino. Our mission at Kino Bino is to continue to create fun, engaging and top quality content for use in education and by businesses. Behind the scenes, things haven’t changed. We’re still just as passionate about our creative work and our desire to provide excellent services, producing the very best work for our clients. Kino Bino represents both of us and I’m excited about this next chapter in my animation adventure.

You can visit our new Kino Bino Website and see what we’ve been working on in Our PortfolioGive us a follow on socials too! Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Steff Lee Studios is still operating and we’re still working on some amazing animation and illustration projects, so do get in touch if you’re interested in working together.

Steff x

Work Experience at Steff Lee Studios: My week at work

A Bit About Me

Hiya! I'm Freya and this week I have been doing my work experience at Steff Lee Studios to learn more about jobs in the art world. I am an art enthusiast and love drawing - especially characters from movies and TV shows I have seen. My favourite animated movie of all time is Tangled! In my spare time, I like painting, baking, and playing games. I love using bright colours in my artwork.

This Week's Work Experience

I have been learning how to make digital or "inked" illustrations and seeing how an initial idea is turned into a fully-fledged animation.

Here is some of the finished work I produced this week!

These are some animations I made: The cat was made frame by frame, as was the bouncy ball. However, the cat was all hand drawn and the ball was made using the circle tool to make it look a little less messy!

This is an illustration I did of a mermaid for MerMay which I hand drew and then scanned into the computer to be digitally inked.

What I Have Learnt This Week

This week has been really interesting, useful and eye-opening for me as I hope to have a career in art or animation in the future. I have learned how to do basic animation and I now know how to use different software and equipment that I wouldn't have been able to use or learn at school. Graphic design isn't taught at my school and so this has really helped me to see what a job in it would be like.

Plans For The Future

Before this week I knew I wanted to do a job that involved art but now I know that animation and character design particularly interest me. In the meantime, I plan to continue to draw and paint and share my artwork with the online community of artists. Maybe I will even try out a few animations at home! :)

Bring the Paint - Leicester Street Art Festival 2017

So it's been just over a month since Leicester's 'Bring The Paint' street art festival organised by CQA alongside Graff HQ/Inspirate and MONO. It was such a great and inspiring weekend that I wanted to share some of my photos and thoughts on the event.

Even though the majority of work I do these days is digital I have always loved traditional art forms and have been fascinated with street art since I was a teenager. That is why for 2017 I made it one of my goals to "Learn to Spray Paint". So it was very exciting to have the street art festival right on the doorstep of my studio space. It has brought some much-needed creativity and life into Leicester's Cultural Quarter.

The week running up to the event was great with artists working on huge pieces across the area. Just having a stroll on my lunch break meant I could see these super talented artists doing what they do best. Being able to meet and chat to them as they worked was great bonus too.

The day itself brought the Cultural Quarter alive in a way I have never seen before. The streets were full, there was music, a pop-up skate ramp, and people were painting all over. The LCB Depot was jam-packed with DJ's providing music throughout the day and delicious street food stalls.

Below are some of my snaps from the week including some of my favourite pieces.

Philth

WON ABC

Cantwo

N4T4

Hombre & Boogie

Mono

Alex Rubes

Bates

Supplies

My other half (who is a graffiti artist) had been given a spot to paint in the city and had suggested we paint something together. I had spray painted in our garden before but never out on the street so I was a bit nervous about making a mess. I sketched out a design with a brush and then he tidied up the line work with the spray can. After that we filled it in together, the results was a big blue face in a doorway on St James Street. (See images below)

It was so much fun collaborating with him and gave me the confidence to do some more. A few weeks later we created a large piece together for the Nottingham Street Art exhibition at The Surface Gallery. There are so many things I want to learn and I'm hoping to continue making art in our garden this summer :) Watch this space!

Painting on St James Street, Leicester

Our first finished collab

Our second collab piece in our garden

At The Surface Gallery