Students in the Art Exploration class learned the traditional process of cel animation that revolutionized cinema in the 20th century. Artists created hand-drawn characters on transparent celluloid sheets called cels that were placed over painted backgrounds. Every frame was drawn by hand by a team of animators to create multiple films including classic Disney hits like Pinocchio (1940), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and the Lion King (1994).
High school students got to experience a small taste of this process by creating their own characters animated into a loop of three cels. It was exciting to see my students develop a story within the context of art history in the field of animation.
In this video demonstration, each sheet adds every individual motion that develops the overall scene.
Source: The Art Professor "How It's Made: Traditional Cel Animation" of the Pink Panther https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElXRkfVBIp0
Students read an article in the Scholastic Art Magazine featuring Walt Disney's studio development of Mickey Mouse and the process of hand-drawn animation. Snow White was the first cel animated film in 1937, dazzling audiences with the experience of seeing imaginary characters talk, sing, and dance to a musical beat for the very first time. For people struggling through the Great Depression, animation became a joyful escape from the harsh realities of everyday life.
Character and Story Development:
Students brainstormed ideas and developed a concept to animate with an overall theme. It could be a story or simply demonstrate motion throughout the scene. They had to create multiple sketches as they considered the personality of their character and the circumstances of their environment.
Painting Fundamentals for Background Scene
We reviewed color theory and mixing tints, tones, and shades to prepare for painting the background scenes. Students had to demonstrate value and balance the space of their composition to create a rich environment for the animation to play out on.
Character Cels
Their characters were drawn with full detail in their sketchbooks so that they could trace the first cel in pencil and position the character onto the painted scene.
These tracing paper sheets were helpful when outlining their characters with acrylic paint markers on the clear acetate celluloid sheets.
Character Slides
The process of drawing and outlining their characters in paint markers was repeated until all three slides were completed in full saturation. Students loved working with the acrylic paint markers!
Documentation and Digital Animation
Once their painted scenes and hand-drawn characters were fully rendered, students learned how to photograph their work with minimal distractions for smooth transitions when animated. Artwork had to be photographed with good lighting so as not to reflect the glare from the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. They also had to compose each photo with the same angle and orientation without moving their position so that the slides would align from one to the next instead of bouncing around when the camera moved.
Each photo was uploaded to their Artsonia accounts and emailed so they could download them into iMovie where students scaled the images and set them to less than a half second each to view as a loop playback.
We exported the videos as .mp4 files and then converted them into gifs on Adobe Express.
The final videos were uploaded to their online portfolios on Artsonia were students wrote their titles and artist statements.
To view these videos on this blog website, the original .mp4 files have been uploaded so they don't play automatically. Click on the play button below to see what these artists created!
Title: Dinosaur Explosion
Artist Statement: My characters are two brontosauruses with a mother and her child eating food off the tree when all of a sudden the volcano begins to erupt and they must flee the scene to a safe place! My favorite part of my artwork is the colors I choose for the dinosaurs which has a nice contrast from all the other colors.
Title: Showdown
Artist Statement: My characters are two cowboys in a small desert town. The animation starts with them staring each other down as the words DRAW appear insinuating a “Texas showdown” but unexpectedly, the scarier of the two cowboys pulls out a pencil and paper to actually draw the other cowboy! My favorite part was the sheriff cowboy as he’s just a little guy.
Title: Alien Bees on a Flesh Flower
Artist Statement: Two alien bees known as "zeebles" fly onto a flower of flesh together. There is a landing pad (usually for UFOs) in the middle of the flower, where they end up taking a nap together.
Title: Skater Cel Animation
Artist Statement: I wanted a cartoon scene that was goofy and really silly. I wanted it to be very simple and powerful at the same time.
Title: Early Bird
Artist Statement: In this cel animation story, there is a bird resting on a branch and two baby birds in the nest. The bigger bird is feeding the babies a worm but the sibling jumps up to steal the worm. My favorite part of my artwork is probably the background because it took a lot of mixing of shades and colors to make.
Title: Escaping
Artist Statement: Getting off a moving train is all about speed and guts. Find an exit, keep your balance, and don't hesitate - just get out of there before its too late!
Title: Clifton, the Space Cat
Artist Statement: My character is a calico cartoon cat named Clifton who is floating away from the space fish. Due to the fact that he is in space, he can't really run back to them.
We reflected on how the origins of animation was a meticulous frame-by-frame approach that was very labor-intensive to maintain smooth movement. Students compared their process of creating just three slides to the thousands of cels that animators would paint to fully animated films.
They were excited to see the process from beginning to end and learn a new medium that has a certain visual charm and authenticity that is one-of-a-kind when compared to the polish of digital methods. It's amazing to think that we can still engage with the same process that the first animators used to capture the Disney spirit!
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