A (Really) Brief History of Illustration - Idea Generation

Aside from our 3000 word essay, we are to create a short (At least 10 to 30 seconds) animation based on any past Context in Practice lecture or seminar of our choosing.

While it has been suggested that we work on an animation that is connected to our essay topic to make things easier and to save us more time (Since there really isn't much in the first place), I found myself more interested in working on something different (I feel that it is not often that we get to do an animation focusing on another art major), the Illustration lecture had especially caught my attention from the very beginning and so it wasn't too difficult to make my choice on what I wanted to work on…

Outline of Brief and Chosen Topic

What intrigues me the most about Illustration is how challenging it is sometimes to pinpoint the type of work that can be produced from it, while most people believe that Illustrations are just drawings you see in storybooks, there is actually so much more that comes from it (As listed above in that messy little mind map, there are countless uses and techniques when it comes to illustrating). 

But perhaps the easiest way to identify an illustration is to remember the main purpose of its creation, and that is to communicate a message to the audience one way or another.

An extract from Wikipedia about Illustration states:

"An illustration is a visualization or a depiction made by an artist, such as a drawing, sketch, painting, photograph, or other kind of image of things seen, remembered or imagined, using a graphical representation. 

Illustrations can be artistic images illustrating for example a text, poem, fashion, magazines, stamps or a book and very often illustrations were made for children's books. The aim of an illustration is to elucidate or decorate a story, poem or piece of textual information by providing a visual representation of something described in the text. 

Illustrations can be executed in different techniques, like watercolor, gouache, ink, oil, charcoal chalk or woodcut."

While an extract from Wikipedia about Illustrators states:

"An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicated concepts or objects that are difficult to describe textually, which is the reason illustrations are often found in children's books."

Rough Timeline

For my idea, I thought of animating a silhouette walking through an art gallery displaying a variety of illustration works (That will also follow a timeline, as shown in the rough draft above), as the character passes each work however, the attire of the silhouette will change to match the time period from when the work was first created.

The only issue is what works should be included as it is most definitely impossible to fit everything in, even with 30 seconds. So I still need to shorten the timeline as much as I can… Other animation ideas will be shared in the next blog post.

To Do List:

1. Write up on Research Gathering
2. Confirm Illustration Timeline (Definitely has to be shortened)
3. Storyboard It
4. Gather Examples of Illustration
5. Design Background
6. Animate Walk Cycle
7. Put it all Together in After Effects