Lately I have been seeing a number of animated flour sacks - an exercise in learning to create movement and emotion in a character. This is something that I struggle with, so tonight I did a little searching for some inspiration and images of what to work toward.
There is a great collection of images and videos posted by Stuart Lees Tait here.
And from other blogs...
" It really is an effective thing to practice drawing with. The bag of
flour exudes weight, shape, volume, and even texture! (I told my
students to add stitching in the front to further help in defining the
form), but is also a very simple shape which anyone can draw." - from Scribble Junkies
Just found a link to this very informative blog post on the origins of the flour sack exercise and what it's real purpose was - a very interesting must read! Here's a small quote from it:
"So the primary reason for the half-filled flour sack is as a simplified learning platform for understanding natural deformations in movement and dealing with the inherent limitations. The additional imparting of character, personality and emotions to the flour sack is a secondary part of the exercise that evolved later. All too often animation students are introduced to this exercise as a lesson in learning to develop and show character and emotions in a simple object and don’t truly understand the primary value of the exercise. The poor misunderstood little flour sack gets a quick pass as a simple and pathetic little character and is often overlooked as a real training ground for understanding forces, deformation, and fundamental organic movement."
Read the rest of the post here.
"So the primary reason for the half-filled flour sack is as a simplified learning platform for understanding natural deformations in movement and dealing with the inherent limitations. The additional imparting of character, personality and emotions to the flour sack is a secondary part of the exercise that evolved later. All too often animation students are introduced to this exercise as a lesson in learning to develop and show character and emotions in a simple object and don’t truly understand the primary value of the exercise. The poor misunderstood little flour sack gets a quick pass as a simple and pathetic little character and is often overlooked as a real training ground for understanding forces, deformation, and fundamental organic movement."
Read the rest of the post here.
Interesting! I know this was an animation assignment where I taught and I assumed it was about making a character with the least likely candidate. . . no face, etc. But the real reason makes much more sense!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lisa. There are so many helpful illustration concepts to be learned from animation.
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