I think the last time the Washington Post put together a video of me working was in 2011… here’s a link to the just released latest one:
Tag: The Washington Post
Ann is re-charging
Ann’s got a Washington Post blog page!
I’m really excited that the Washington Post has created a blog page for me. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be writing much (since I’m not much of a writer) but what I am going to be doing is posting cartoon gifs, stills, and sketches in addition to the current animated videos. This new format will give me more creative flexibility and the ability to use whatever medium best suits my ideas.
Former Virginia Gov. McDonnell does a Sofia Vargara rotation
Jeff Bezos of Amazon buys The Washington Post
I work from home so I only go into the actual Washington Post building about once a month to meet with my editor and touch base. Since it was such a beautiful day, Jim suggested we talk over coffee at the corner Starbucks. As we waited for the elevator, groups of WPost employees were making their way down to a company wide meeting where everyone expected the announcement of the location of their new offices to be made (there were plans for months to sell the iconic 15th Street building). Right as we sat down Jim received a text and said something like “Holy sh**! The Washington Post was just bought by Jeff Bezos!” I thought he was kidding at first but as soon as I started scrolling my twitter feed, I could see it was true. Amazingly, no one saw this coming- it seemed like everyone at the WPost was caught by surprise and genuinely shocked.
More to come….
SCOTUS update
We’re down to the last week of the Supreme Court’s 2012 term and still no opinions on gay marriage, affirmative action, and voting rights. SCOTUSblog will begin live blogging Monday at 9am and expect opinions to start coming in at 10am. As I mentioned before, I’ll be doing live sketches of the action outside of the Court so check back here and at the Washington Post. 
NSA and metadata
Where to start? It seems like new developments about domestic spying are coming every hour. Before we get ahead of ourselves, here’s a good AP piece which will give you some background about how we got to this point. Glenn Greenwald & Ewen MacAskill from The Guardian broke the story and revealed the identity of the whistleblower, Edward Snowden while Barton Gellman & Laura Poitrus of The Washington Post had the breaking story of the metadata mining program, “PRISM”. Here’s the link to my take on metadata gathering.
The Cicadas are coming
There’s no particular reason for posting this sketch; was just watching Sen. Mitch McConnell on Meet the Press and thought he looked like a cicada.
The process
A recent Facebook post asked me to explain how I create my animations. Basically, I approach the concept process the same as I did my print editorial cartoons; reading and listening to the news, drawing thumbnails, and making notes in my sketchbook.
My drawings tend to be very rough so sometimes I can’t even decipher what I’ve done.
On deadline days I’ll decide on which idea to take to the next step to make sure that it will work as an animation. This is where my process changes (and becomes longer) than my process to create a print cartoon. While sketching up ideas I’ll also write down possible sound effects to use and then go online to find and purchase what I’ll need. Sounddogs is my favorite to use. After that it’s time to lay tracks and begin figuring out the timing. In Photoshop, I’ll scan in rough drawings and export to Flash where I’ve laid my sound tracks. Once I think it’s working, I’ll send to my editor at The Washington Post for approval. After I get her ok, then it’s time to do the final animation animation poses. 
This is where I’ll send you over to an excellent video by Anup Kaphle which shows the rest of the process (this was done about a year ago, so it won’t show the one above; but you’ll get the idea)- and then here is the finished version.