Twirl
I’ve always been in awe of animators and their seemingly innate ability to not only draw, but direct and conjure life as it moves and breathes.
I spent the majority of my early childhood watching and rewatching Disney’s Fantasia 2000, enchanted by its stylistic storytelling and the way it so seamlessly wove sound and image together.
This was my first ever (and very meager) attempt at animation, and the process was not nearly as magical as I had hoped. I spent about three hours watching a Youtube clip featuring a ballet dancer, pausing at each new shift or bend. I used vine charcoal to sketch her position, took a photograph of my rendering, then used my fingertips to smudge any parts that were to change during her dance. I remember that my hands had turned completely black by the time I had finished drawing and redrawing the ballerina (in fact, I sort of despised her by the end of it).
It was a strangely primitive approach to fine art, and the worst part was that this obsessive study resulted in only SEVEN SECONDS of actual animation. What you see here are what might be considered “cells” in Animator-Speak— little consecutive snapshots that make up the dance itself. Darker smudges indicate the passage of time; the ballerina spins and dirties the scene around her.
I’d love to take a stab at animation sometime in the future, though I doubt I’d take this “traditional” (ie. remarkably tedious) approach again. I simply do not have the strength. Digital animation, on the other hand…
