Information is Beautiful

'Information is Beautiful' and 'Knowledge is Beautiful' are two of my most prized books. If I could pick the perfect coffee table book, it would be one of these beauties. Knowledge is Beautiful might just win because it provides context as well as the facts; highlighting how facts can be distorted to give a certain impression (a nice little trick commonly used by the media).

They're books full of facts, some of which you probably never needed or desired to know, but hey! Information is Beautiful! I love these books so much because they have such a broad appeal and they cross subject borders, bringing science, politics, literature, art and so many more together. It is also a similar approach to that of William Grill (previous post mentions him more) and his visual lists. The useful and not-so-useful facts in 'Information is Beautiful' are presented in the form of infographics (data presented in an illustrative format).

Take these as examples:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/blog/ - More wonderful stuff on their blog!

Non-fiction picture books - Teaching kids using illustrations

William Grill recently won the Kate Greenaway Medal for his children's book about Shackleton's Journey, which was hailed for it's beautiful combination of coloured pencil illustrations and factual information in an intriguing tale of Shackleton's Journey across Antarctica. 

In a talk he gave to our uni last year, he described his love of Raymond Briggs' 'The Snowman', which I think is very apparent in his choice of materials and colour schemes. This style of work and the material  choices are things I am seriously considering for my authorship animation. 

It is the way that William Grill's choice of subject matter has changed the face of picture books though. By making a book that is both beautifully illustrated and teaching children about history in fun and engaging way. I particularly love his 'visual lists', which I think are an ingenious way of making tedious information and facts immediately much more engaging. 

We are all born free

A friend of mine just showed me this gorgeous animated film, commissioned by Amnesty International to advertise their children's book about our universal human rights for children aged 5+. The book itself is another wonderful example of how illustrations can make difficult concepts more accessible, and is bang on trend with a growing popularity in non-fiction children's books on the market. 

The video combines animated illustrations with live acting on a blank white screen, which gives it a really fresh, contemporary look. This is exactly the kind of clean style combined with coloured pencil illustrative animations that I would like to achieve for Claire House. 

'Amnesty's delightful book We Are All Born Free explains the importance of human rights through truly beautiful illustrations. It is clear, simple and uplifting and makes it very easy to raise difficult subjects, even with young children. It is a wonderful educational tool and I strongly believe that every school should own a copy.'

Actress and author Emma Thompson

Tiny Life Drawing

In preparation for the animation I want to make for a children's hospice charity, I've been developing a way of drawing toddlers and children. They have slightly different proportions it seems and they tend to hold themselves differently too. Kids are generally more exuberant and expressive so I've been experimenting trying to capture that with a loose, childlike style of drawing too. 

Toodler stance

Various toddler positions

More of a classic children's book style from my childhood.

Drawing in a kid's style with coloured pencils

Art Therapy and Animation

There is definitely some magic involved in creating an animation. Animating means 'bringing something to life'  so the power of animating in art therapy makes sense, especially as stop-motion animation and pixilation techniques don't necessarily require a high drawing standard to create something beautiful. Anyone, of any age or ability can make a stop-motion film. 

Katie Hall is an artist and art therapist, who has developed animation workshops for her patients to help them deal with issues such as depression, PTSD, developmental disabilities and schizophrenia. Her blog has some clips of films she has made in her work, links to inspiring TED talks and explanations as to how her methods help people. 

http://www.katiehallarttherapy.com/blog

Learning to draw like a child

Pablo Picasso is regularly quoted as having said,

 "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

 

 

What Picasso is really saying here is that ignoring extraneous details and simplifying everything down to it's basic components/shape/features is something that children do on a daily basis, but as adults we need to train our brains into a more abstract and creative way of thinking to return to that skill. Picasso is not actually talking about painterly skill at all, but an artistic thought process.

 

In these sketches you can see how he has simplified his drawings over and over again to achieve the simple, clean design at the end. Quentin Blake also has a similar approach and uses a lightbox to re-draw his illustrations several times until the sketch is much cleaner and less fussy and detailed than the original. This is a technique I will need to adopt if I want to capture the essence of childhood in my animation for Claire House. In the past I have enjoyed simplifying photos and film to single line styles (bunny examples below), and it works really well for rotoscoping film footage as well because it allows the movement to be the focus.

 



Moths and Butterflies

I was originally inspired to create an animation for a NPO by Moth Collective's animation for the NSPCC. Since following more of their work through their vimeo account and blog, I've come to also really appreciate their style of animation and their style of storytelling. They reach in and find the human quality in every story, be it for a charity or the New York Times. I prefer their hand-drawn and sketchier style of work to the computer-generated animations. Even though the computerised animations appeal less to me though, the colour schemes in every piece of their work have a lovely, fresh, contemporary feel. This is something I want to bring to the work I'll produce for my chosen charity, who have an internal symbol of a butterfly for all the children they help. 

http://mothcollective.co.uk