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Prime Time Emmy Honored TV Animator Launches “Surf Soup”
The The beginning of Surf Soup Projects that Include: Two Podcasts, NFT Art, Animated Shorts, Vella
Prime Time Emmy Honored TV Animator & Author Launches “Surf Soup” Kids Book Series & Reveals More!
The beginning of Surf Soup Projects that Include: Two Podcasts, NFT Art, Animated Shorts, Vella and a Short Documentary Film:” Making ‘Surf Soup”-A Chinese American Story of Donna Kay Lau TV Animator, Author and illustrator
Prime Time Emmy Honored TV animator, author & Illustrator Donna Kay Lau launches “Surf Soup” children’s book series. Lau the creator of ‘Surf Soup” is a TV animator who produced shows from Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network animation studios: Dora the Explorer, Catdog, Oswald the Octopus, Generator Rex, Ben 10 & Generator Rex (Crossover), and Regular Show. Lau has produced children’s content for over 30 years.
The stories begin with Auntie, an animator inviting you into her art studio to play and use your imagination.
The “Surf Soup” series is based on a tropical island with Koa, a diverse character with a magical hair on his head, and his surfboard that farts rainbows. “Surf Soup” series is character rich, with many unique characters like a fuzzy purple pickle, a sea cucumber, Prana the piranha, and a pigeon that speaks pidgin to name a few. There are eight books currently in the “Surf Soup” series, for ages 6 to 12, and have bright colorful illustrations on every page, including unique, colorful end pages and fun creative activities and back matter. The Surf Soup books have, on average, 70 to 120 pages each.
Lau’s imagination will keep you surprised and laughing. Each story highlights character development, self-esteem, diversity, grit, inclusion, and an emphasis on caring for the island and the environment, and in the book “Surf Soup’ in the series you learn how to surf and the lessons you learn from surfing, and then the beach is closed. Kids learn the value of caring for the ocean and their friends. Parents and teachers will delight as stories teach SEL (Social, emotional learning) and teach S.T.E.A.M. (Science, technology, engineering, art, and math), with an emphasis of being compassionate towards each other and all living things.
“We are all in the Surf Soup Together.”
Lau, a first generation Chinese American, was inspired by her experiences and developed Asian characters for the Surf Soup series displaying a full age range with inspiration drawn from her elderly relatives. Lau has also launched a serialized “Vella” introducing one episode at a time later to be published as a book, and made into a documentary short film -” Making ‘Surf Soup”-A Chinese American Story of Donna Kay Lau TV Animator, Author and illustrator. Eli Reed, director of photography of the Surf Soup film, Eli Reed is an American photographer and photojournalist. Reed was the first full-time black photographer employed by Magnum Agency and the author of several books, including Black In America. Reed was recently honored with I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence Lucie Foundation Award Documentary photography, to name a few. Lau and Reed will produce the “Making Surf Soup” film. Lau writes about her experience producing the Surf Soup projects, and amazing coincidences, while following her purpose through perseverance and grit.
Lau also created and launched her Surf Soup NFT art collection, a unique collection of collectible animated shorts minted and sold on “Rarible” and Lau has also created a limited edition Surf Soup character merchandise and sold on Etsy (Surf Soup)
Lau recently launched and hosts two new podcasts: “Surf Soup-Talk Story” and ‘Surf Soup TV” podcast for children. Lau has produced a Surf Soup-Talk Story episode with Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, the author of “Blue Mind” and Lau will interview Eli Reed in the Fall of 2022.
For the Surf Soup TV podcast for children, Lau will read excerpts from the ‘Surf Soup” series starting in Fall, 2022 and available for live virtual book signing and appearances. Lau will introduce her Surf Soup series and teach about success as an artist and animation.
There is so much to be excited about. With the launching of the “Surf Soup” book series, podcasts, Vella, NFT art, short documentary, and forthcoming animated shorts, it’s just the beginning of more to follow. Stay informed by following Donna Kay Lau’s ‘Surf Soup’ series and projects at
https://Surfsoup.tv and follow @Surfsoup Instagram
Surf Soup series books are available in paperback, hardback, epub/Kindle, and wherever books are sold, book stores, online retailers, and Amazon books.
https://amzn.to/3AOTseX Bsrnes & Noble, Booktopia (AU), Alibris (Europe/UK)
SURF SOUP TV links: https://bit.ly/m/Surfsoup
For more information, email: info@Surfsoup.tv
Website: https://Surfsoup.tv
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Spinning Out Ideas
Spinning out ideas Jill-of-all- trades finds many ways to survive as fine artist
by Shirley Hsu , Staff Writer
Spinning in the dark is one of Donna Lau's favorite activities. She teaches indoor cycling, or spinning... Dim lighting accompanied by world music helps her students to focus, she says.
She's also a fine artist, a children's book illustrator, a children's clothing designer, and an animator. For Lau, being a Jill- of-all trades is the only way for an artist to survive in today's competitive world.
After studying advertising design and illustration at Mt. San Antonio College, Lau attended night school at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where she soon realized the impossibility of paying tuition.
While in school, Lau worked 40 hours a week at a gas station, secretly doing her painting homework in a back room when business was slow.
Lau soon realized that to survive, she needed to support herself in other ways, she said. With a $50 loan from her mother, she bought and decorated T-shirts, which she then took to a local park where they sold out.
Buoyed by this modest success, Lau decided to launch her own children's fashion and design company, and "Art is On!" was born.
She soon had a stroke of good luck when she got a bit of unexpected exposure at a New York show.
"My 3-year-old model walked down the runway and then just decided to flash everyone her underwear,' said Lau. "The photographers loved it.'
In addition to children's fashion, Lau makes an adult line of Chinese-themed clothing. She also has worked as a production assistant on the animation "CatDog' as well as a self-described "glorified eraser' for "Dora the Explorer.'
She is now working on a children's cookbook, "Chow Fun' which will include recipes for her mom's Chinese dishes as well as the stories behind the food.
"I realized there were some rich stories behind some of these dishes,' she said and that learning about them might help children appreciate Asian culture, something Lau has only recently taken to heart.
"When I was growing up, didn't have the Asian residents it does now. I dyed blond streaks in my hair, and I would do anything to fit in to the American ideal,' she said.
Now, Lau seems to have an Asian fetish of sorts - her clothing is trimmed in Asian-themed fabrics, and she wants to package a new T-shirt in a Chinese takeout box with decorative chopsticks. And, she is studying Chinese brush painting.
Whether she's spinning yarns about Chinese food or spinning on a stationary bike, Lau insists that versatility is not just essential for an artist's financial survival, but also for mental and physical health.
She has run in and finished six marathons, and is planning to compete in the San Dimas Express triathlon in October.
She also has produced a new "fitness line' of clothing as an alternative to unfeminine workout clothes.
"I was tired of looking like a boy after workouts,' Lau said.
Lau's career choices often have baffled her beleaguered parents.
"I have five kids,' her father said. "My first, she's a civil engineer with the county. My second is a security banker with the Bank of America. My third one is an accountant. My son is a structural engineer. Donna, we cannot tell her what to do. Now I just leave her alone.'
