Palm animation - Pixel Palette

Arts & Activities, Sept, 2003 by Craig Hinshaw

In the book, The Dawn of Art, the Chauvet Cave (Harry N. Abrams, 1996), there is a photograph of a running bison rendered in charcoal on a deep recess of a cave wall in France. The bison has eight legs. When teaching animation to students, I begin by showing this picture and discussing with them what it might mean. Most students think that the artist, who made the drawing over 30,000 years ago, was attempting to create a sense of motion.

The second visual I show is Marcel Duchamp's, Nude Descending a Staircase. Although it is the title of the painting that always captures the students' attention, it is because of the painting's animated quality, created by its multiple overlapping shapes and planes, that I show the picture. When first shown in America at the Armory Show in 1913, the painting attracted 100,000 visitors.

Next I show the students a paper place mat saved from a McDonald's restaurant. It shows Woody and Jessie, the characters from the movie Toy Story, one of the first successful full-length computer animated movies. Most students have seen this movie as well as more recent computer-animated movies like Shrek and Ice Age.

The three examples show artists' fascination with animation, from the earliest marks on a cave wall to today's use of state of the art technology. Many more examples could have been shown to fill in the gaps (wrestlers depicted on Greek amphoras or Eadweard Muybridge's photographs of animals in motion).

I began teaching animation 25 years ago, using a Super-8 movie camera that had an intervalometer (stop-action feature) and a tripod. In the mid-1980s, I switched to a camcorder (providing instant feedback and ease of dubbing sound) with a time-lapse feature. Next I used a smaller compact 8mm camcorder, making moving between schools less burdensome. Most recently I've been using a digital camcorder.

In 2000 we received a grant providing a Palm[TM] handheld (a personal data assistant or "PDA") for each of our fifth-grade students. We downloaded Sketchy, an easy-to-use animation program, on the Palms. Using a stylus, a drawing (one frame) is made directly on the Palm's small monitor. The drawing is copied, then altered; repeating these steps until the animation is completed. It is a similar process to making a flip-book. When the animation mode is selected, up to 1,000 drawings are brought to life on the Palm's monitor.

The students' first assignment, connected to their science curriculum, was to create an animation of a flower growing, which was then to be pollinated by a butterfly. Students animated seeds bouncing into the ground, rain nourishing the seed, followed by a radiant sun. The seeds sprouted, blossomed, and were finally pollinated by a flapping winged butterfly.

We allowed the fifth-graders to keep their Palms with them, even taking them home. This provided lots of time for practice and the students have been eager to show the progress their animations are taking. One student created animation based on his favorite video game that is over 150 frames.

At a recent National Art Education Association Convention, I attended two presentations on animation using digital cameras and computers. I was greatly impressed and look forward to using the recent purchase of digital cameras our district has made. Technology continues to change, but students' love of animation doesn't--and neither does mine.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

students will...

* learn about the history of animation.

* learn the basic principles of animation.

* use cuffing edge technology to create a short computer animation.

Craig Hinshaw teaches art at Lessenger Elementary School in Madison Heights, Michigan.