Early Years Animation

Art and Memories

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:50:00 +0100

The work with puppets and backgrounds has finally been edited. The final session at St Sids had the children working on Indian dance. They then designed masks and backgrounds to make a small stage to perform on. This was a lot of fun for everyone, and you could see the development of the children from their control of puppets to holding up the masks. Developing their creative play skills into more focussed artistic output is challenging, but even over a few sessions it is possible to see their understanding grow. At West Exe, we finished off the puppets of the children and their families. It was tricky to get them to engage in memories, but we spent time exploring the things they like to do with their family through various art forms. These four weeks were more focussed around the process of engaging with the families in a creative way than artistic output, but the children still made some great stuff. There were many interesting chats with parents and staff about ideas for activities they can run in the future or things they can try at home.

Here are our films. Enjoy.

Puppets 'R' Us

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:45:21 +0000

On Friday we carried on with our backgrounds at West Exe, with Tamsin Pender doing some lovely work with paints. At the same time we also started to work on puppets with the children, so that they could be combined with their backgrounds to animate their memories. The photo below shows one of the children moving a puppet of him and his dad, while they take a walk, on top of the painting he created of the beach. Lizzie Swinford was working with the children on awareness of their bodies to link with the puppets that they were making. It was a really fun session with lots of messy painting and drawing with their fingers, which is always good for the participants. We also had a child do some painting who had never painted before, as he had never wanted to. These are the joyful moments when you see a parents face light up with pride - I think they were off to buy some paints at the end of the session. One more week of work, and then I think we will have a great little film of their favourite memories.

Walking on the Beach

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:35:51 +0000

Walking on the Beach

Japanese Art

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:29:28 +0000

We have been working this week on art inspired by Japanese printing and illustration. Continuing our puppet theme at St Sids, we have been making fish that will be jumping in and out of huge waves that we also have made. There were some interesting results, especially for the growth of the participants. There ability to move a puppet and understand that this needs to be something which is done both slowly and with care is really increasing. This type of motor control is difficult for the age group coming to the session, let alone their understanding why we are filming the puppets and how they will be used. Slowly, as our sessions grow, we can see this understanding growing a little bit at a time. Working with illustrator Lucy Richards has been a lot of fun. To get that watercolour effect on the textured paper we were using, she ground down chalk pastels and the children ‘painted’ with their fingers. This was a great success and the children enjoyed the textural approach to this and the bright colours they got to play with. We also made huge waves, as a set for the puppets, but it became very obvious that what they most enjoyed was playing in these themselves. We are going to use this ‘play’ approach next week, so check back to see our finished film soon.

Illustrated Fish

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:17:23 +0000

Illustrated Fish

Backgrounds

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:53:22 +0000

This week at West Ex children’s centre we broke down our ‘memories’ idea to work on it piece by piece. It is quite a small group there and they are less used to this more focussed work. Lizzie has been working really well to engage the families in movement and dance exploring places that the children like to go, ending in a fantastic under the sea exploration with beautiful fabric. We spent our time making crayon pictures for backgrounds to our little film, and it was good to see the parents and children drawing together. We are hoping to build on this next week with puppets, and maybe even do some filming before the final session.

A giraffe at the zoo

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:51:59 +0000

A giraffe at the zoo

Lots of Energy

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:43:46 +0000

On Friday we finished off the animation about Solar energy that was sponsored by Ekland. It was such a fun session, with the children and families making puppets of themselves to live in the houses they had created the previous week. This type of focussed work is difficult for the families, especially when we are aware that there is a message based, final piece that needs to be finished. The children all had a go at making themselves and then played with the puppets, practicing quite focussed and slow movement. It was interesting to watch them with their puppets, as they were able to see what they were doing through the display on the camera (which was turned towards them). There is something quite amazing about seeing their understanding and recognition of what they are doing grow, as they become aware that their movement is coming out on the screen. Sometimes they were more involved with watching the screen in excitement than actually focussing on their puppets. It is difficult for them, conceptually, to understand the camera and what they are seeing, which is what makes it so great when you see it suddenly make sense to them.

Anyway, the animation came out great and the children and families worked really hard. Also, a special thanks to Lucy Richards who was working with us and made the artwork and puppets look so great. Enjoy our short little film:

Memories

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:26:10 +0000

We are working at West-Exe Children’s Centre putting together some work on Memories. Through movement, puppetry and visual arts we are hoping to engage the children in thinking about times they have spent with their parents or carers. The group is very young and animation would be quite difficult for them. Filming is also tricky at this type of drop in session, and so we are focusing around the use of puppets which we will build with them over a few weeks. They will be very simple but also require help from the adults, as do the backgrounds. We are planning to continue the theme over a few weeks and work slowly with the participants.

Working on Memories

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:10:12 +0000

Working on Memories

Going Solar

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:27:00 +0000

Started back at our regular St Sidwell’s sessions on a Friday, with an exciting opportunity to make an animation about renewable energy. The lovely people at Ekland Solar have donated some money to fund our sessions, and this has given us a chance to do some further themed animation work. The families spent there time this week preparing much of the materials that would be needed to make an animation about Solar Power. We started off working on their individual houses, and moved to some collaborative colouring in and sticking for the night sky (see below) and a lovely daytime scene. Some of the participants also had a go at animating a gorgeous sun, flickering its rays down to the earth and absorbing the heat energy into panels. We also animated this turning into electricity. The families seemed to have a lot of fun working on individual and then collaborative pieces. This focused and themed animation is challenging for us as artists and for the families, but everyone is having a lot of fun but at the same time pushing the limit of their skills. We are also lucky to be mentoring the very talented illustrator Lucy Richards, who is helping to make the animation top notch. Watch this space for updates and the final piece, which should be finished in a week or so.

The Night Sky

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:12:17 +0000

The Night Sky

Shadow Play

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:26:18 +0000

We completed our final session at West Exe Children’s Centre this week, rounding up our work with the participants on shadows. The children have really developed their understanding of shadows quite significantly. Playing with light and props, they were starting to control their shadows - adding to them to change their shape and size by use of cardboard and their distance from the light source. Over the four weeks we have experienced some intriguing comments from the group: ‘My shadow is getting bigger’, ‘My shadow is really tall’, ‘That shadow is me’. Watching the film back each week enabled the group to focus on how their shadows work and isolated the shadows enough for them to really understand what they were. On week one they found it difficult to even acknowledge what their shadow was, but by week four they could control their shadow and could recognize their shadows apart from other people’s. This was a huge step for their learning and understanding. The playful approach to these sessions was key here, enabling them to explore quite abstract concepts. Below is a short film that was mostly to document their shadows for their own viewing, but also gives an idea of the way the activities and session grew.

Shadows from RA Projects on Vimeo.

Replacement Bugs

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:08:02 +0000

Back at the Whipton Children’s Centres’ ‘Stay and Play’ session, we have been working on Bugs again but this time taking the animation and film work forward. With Kate Mitchell, the children have been working on backgrounds and puppets to be used to create a little film. It has been great working collaboratively on this model, as the children have been getting a much more holistic experience. The puppets and backgrounds have been more complicated and the participants have had to work harder and more creatively. The animation we have been working on also moved forward as we focused much more heavily on replacement animation, thereby extending and improving on the children’s technical knowledge. Although we only worked on a few sessions, the film is technically much more proficient and you can really see that the children’s grasp of animation is hugely improved. As workshop artists we have also been able to develop our model, with the input from the children and the other artists we are collaborating with. This type of focused development is so important but often so difficult without the sustainability of running these sessions weekly. This is something we hope we can keep up over a longer time period - it is exciting to think where we will be in another 6 months.

Butterflies and Caterpillars from Workshops n’ Docs on Vimeo.

Shadows At West Exe

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:39:00 +0000

Over the last three weeks we have been working with Tamsin Pender at West Exe Children’s Centre developing a creative approach to exploring Shadows. For this age group, the recognition of what shadow is and how it works is really difficult. It has been through a slow process of creative play that they have been able to start to acknowledge, explore and control their shadows in some way. Fortunately, we have had some nice sunny sessions and so have looked at shadow outside - moving, making shapes, and chalking around our shadows. We have also been looking, indoors, at light and shadow through the use of lamps and an OHP. Using hands, shapes, coloured pens, and props, we have started to develop the children’s ability to understand light and dark through this play - leading activities but allowing them to grow through what sparks and excites them. This is a process heavy session, but the growth of understanding from the kids is outstanding. We are looking to put this all together in a short ‘film’ to document their creative play. There will be more for us to look at after our final session next week, after which the film will be made. Stay tuned!

St. Sidwell's Family Sessions

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:59:00 +0000

New for 2012, we have just starting working with families at a session run in the St Sidwell’s Centre. This is our first central Exeter session that is run outside of a Children’s Centre, and the response has been great. Over the first 2 weeks we have been looking at ‘Family’ and ‘Support Networks’. The great thing about this session is that it is a support network in itself; many families meeting and chatting who otherwise may have never come into contact with each other. We really wanted to start looking at the family units, and had the opportunity to do do this through movement, visual arts and film. Working with Lizzie Swinford and Kate Mitchell, we have been building up ‘Family Portraits’ by making picture frames, walls on which to hang them, and working with the families on little bits of movement. We were then able to film these and create moving family pictures.

The families involved really enjoyed watching the final film and the children were transfixed to see themselves and their work put together. Hopefully, this will be a beautiful memory for them to share and look back on over time.

Family Portraits from RA Projects on Vimeo.

Crazy Faces

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:10:01 +0000

It’s been a while, but we want to say a little bit about, and show you, the final film done at West Exe Children’s Centre in collaboration with Double Elephant Print Workshop and Tamsin Pender. At the final session, we worked on some other layers of faces using plasticine and other items to animate moving facial features. This took the children even further than we had done before and focused them into really thinking about their faces, features and proportions. At this stage in their development, many of the children are still developing their drawing skills and their understanding of proportioning the body correctly. We hope this has helped with that, as well as raised their own self-awareness.

Anyway, here is the animation. Enjoy.

Crazy Prints from Workshops n’ Docs on Vimeo.

Cooking With Carousel

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Over the past few weeks we have been attending the regular, bi-weekly ‘Father’s Group’ sessions run by Steve Bowers. These have revolved mainly around cooking, fires and tea, and have been great fun to participate in. Over the period of two sessions we have decided to work with the participants and make a cooking show - Episodes 1 and 2. The first week they focused on making sausage and bacon rolls, and in the second week we looked at pancake making. With the addition of craft activities and audio at relevant points we were able to make some neat little cooking shows, and hope it is a model we can continue over the project. These films have two strands to thier showing - they are both documentation of the sessions and fictional films in their own right. This is an interesting approach for the project, and more of this type of documenting would be good to do with the young people. We will definitely look at doing more of this; maybe we should call them ‘Fictionmentaries’? ‘Doctions’? Maybe we will let the children decide. Here are our finished products:

Cooking with Carousel: Bacon & Sausage Rolls from Workshops n’ Docs on Vimeo.

Cooking with Carousel: Pancakes from Workshops n’ Docs on Vimeo.

The Old Lady and The Birds

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:07:12 +0000

The final performance of our puppet piece happened at Stoke Canon, facilitated by Kevin Cotter, and we filmed this so we could make our small film about the Old Lady. The process of this was intriguing, with the children sitting quietly, watching and waiting their turn to show their work. There was also an amazing moment of 8 or so children all using their puppet at once - thereby working together, sharing the puppet space and being careful and considered with their movements. This type of activity is pretty advanced but starts to develop all types of aesthetic and teamwork skills.

The final piece has come together very nicely and has really been a collaboration of the artists working in the sessions and a combination of their art forms. This has enabled the final piece of work to transcend the sessions, and art-forms, to become something bigger - an emergent property of our combined work.

The Story of the Old Lady

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:31:51 +0000

Working again with Kevin Cotter and Lizzie Swinford, we have been continuing to develop the story of the Old Lady and the Birds. Today the participants were animating clouds that will be sitting underneath the final film, to give some depth to it. The children working with me on this had to be quite controlled to keep the cloud movement as even as possible, a challenge which they rose to as the session progressed. We also decided to film some of the younger participants ‘being’ the birds through a movement session with Lizzie, so to create the ‘flock of birds’ from the story the young people have developed.

At the same time, Kevin has been developing the story with the participants and we recorded some of the sound for the final film - different birds singing and some aspects of the story narration. Looking forward to see how this develops next week.

The tied up nature of the art activities in these sessions is really exiting, and the hope is the final film will show the advantage of this type of working method.