BA Drawing
Year Two, SB1, 2017/18
BAD201 Moving Drawing Project
Aims:
- To complete two animated gifs, and in so doing understand how a drawing can be understood to ‘move’ in a variety of ways
- To produce both a 3-frame and a 15-frame animated gif as a means to explore this process digitally
- To develop your own selected drawing principles via this process from research into a broad range of animated works.
Learning Outcomes: LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4, LO6, LO7
Tutors: Dane Watkins (animation) and Joe Graham (drawing)
Assessment Methods: Portfolio of Visual Work
“All of a sudden it hit me – if there was such a thing as composing music, there could be such a thing as composing motion. After all, there are melodic figures, why can’t there be figures of motion?” Len Lye
Brief:
Animations have traditionally been linear movies, moving images that are watched from the beginning to the end like a film with a storyline. With the development of digital technologies animations can be found on websites, phones and digital signboards. An animation can be an object in itself in the same way as a drawing or a painting, as well as being a temporal object it can occupy space as well.
This brief asks you to create an animated object, it could be an animated still life or a looped piece of action such as a walk cycle but the object is to create an animated loop, a slice of time in perpetual motion. Ideally you will have optimised the gifs for the web i.e. made them as small a file size as possible in order for the gif to load as quickly as possible within a website. Dane and I will help you with this.
Dane Watkins will be working to help you deliver this module. Dane is an experienced animator and is highly skilled in digital technologies. If you have any problems don’t hesitate to contact him or ask his advice about creating animated gifs, digital images or movies.
Some questions to consider:
- How is an animated object different to an animated film or a drawing?
- What is the difference between web colours and analogue colours?
- How is the physical world translated into digital pixels?
Duration: 3 Weeks.
From Week 5 (October 23rd) until Week 7 (November 13th) of Study Block 1
Key Dates: Deadline for both 3 frame &15 frame gifs: Wednesday 8th November
Group Crit with Dane: Thursday 9th November.
Timetable:
Monday 23rd October: Seminar E (MAC Suite) 1.30pm - 4.30pm
- Introduction to the history of animation.
- Introduction to using Photoshop to create animations.
- Introduction to web colours and optimising images for websites.
- Introduction to scanning.
Tuesday 24th October: studio
Develop 3 frame animations. Dane will be around all day to help anyone with technical problems of either scanning or drawing frames for an animated gif.
Wednesday 25th October: Mac IT Suite 1.30pm - 4.30pm
By Wednesday afternoon you will have drawn and scanned three drawings and you will use the time in the afternoon to create an animated gif that can be shown on a website.
Thursday 26th October to Wednesday 8th November
Studio time to develop a 15-frame animation.
Wednesday 1st November: Mac IT Suite 1.30pm - 4.30pm
The Mac suite is booked and Dane will be able to help you with any technical problems you may have with Photoshop or scanning.
In order to complete the project you will need to send Dane the link to your website. Please send the link to dane.watkins@gmail.com by the deadline - 5pm Wednesday 8th November
Thursday 9th November Crit 9.30am - 4.30pm
Everyone will present and discuss their responses to the animation brief. You will need to send your work to Dane by 5pm Thursday 3rd November.
Dane Watkins will be in the Drawing studio on the following days:
Monday 23rd October 9.30am - 4.30pm
Tuesday 24th October 9.30am – 4.30pm
Wednesday 25th October 1.30pm – 4.30pm
Monday 30th October 9.30am - 4.30pm
Tuesday 31st October 9.30am – 4.30pm
Wednesday 1st November 1.30pm – 4.30pm
