I believe it is always best to start with a big idea, then reign it in according to your time and budget. Initially for my Cinekids Artwork I wanted to create an animation using a multi-layered print. After further consideration of this idea it dawned upon me that in order to create an animation longer than ten seconds I would be needing to do over a ten layered print… which other than being extremely complicated, would be very risky because if one layer didn’t work well, I would have to start again over and over. The print itself could also become very overcrowded and messy, making the final artwork ineffective.

My second idea was even more ambitious; to create a print of only 3 or 4 layers but then animate the image by printing the layers in a slightly different place each time.  This idea, which although would look fantastic if I could pull it off, would require heaps of time, and meticulous registration.

I then thought about other simpler ways of incorporating animation and printmaking. It needed to be a method which would enable me to achieve my personal targets for the brief:

• The final artwork must be visually appealing to children.
• The story I tell through the final artwork must be simple and clear in order to engage young children.
• The final artwork must incorporate themes of filmmaking and creativity.
• The final artwork must promote CineKids at Watershed

I have learnt during my many years in arts education that it is the idea that should dictate the medium rather than letting the medium dictate the idea, so at this point I decided to forget about how I was going to incorporate the two skills and instead thought more about what I wanted to say with my artwork and how I was going to achieve the targets I set myself.

I came up with the following sketches / storyboards:

By doing this the medium that lent itself to the idea most effectively came naturally – I would handprint paper cut-outs and use these cutouts to create the set, characters and text for my story. I would then animate the paper cut-outs using stop motion animation.

I then considered how I could handprint the characters whilst allowing for movement. The following images show how this is going to work:

I then spent two days in the at Spike Print Studio designing, cutting and printing my fox character and set:

I still have some last details to print, and then I will be ready to start animating the cut-outs using the programme ‘I Can Animate’ which was introduced to me during the animation workshop facilitated by Rosie and Hannah.

During last Thursdays session we had a CineKids Artwork review in which I described my idea and progress to the group. They received my ideas very well and seemed enthused by my project which has given me the confidence to carry on with it in the way I planned.

If my artwork were to be selected to be used as official CineKids promotion I would want to repeat the project using full colour and more detailed designs.