Animated short “Wings”

The Animation Project that I began in 2011 is now complete! “Stop-motion” is both the animation process I used to turn still images into film, and the literal description of the eight year journey it took to finish this 4 minute and 21 second short film.

Storyboard sketches

During the summer of 2012, I made 26 charcoal drawings that I photographed as they were drawn and/or erased. I pared the images down to about 800 for the editing process. This project was often on the back burner while I worked on other drawings, prepared for shows, and investigated editing programs and equipment.

In 2018, after several unsuccessful editing attempts, my son Matt Green (mattgreenfilms.com) came to my rescue. He had the knowledge, experience, and editing program that I lacked.

Still image from animation, charcoal, 22″ x 30″

True to form, I waited a year before contacting  Josh Ritter’s crew to get permission to use his song Wings, which is the inspiration for the drawings. Aaahhh, procrastination!

See two previous posts, Animated Drawing and Animation Continuation, for more info about the development and research for this project.

Drawn to the Wall Video

 I returned to the Gonzaga campus last month at the close of the Drawn to the Wall  exhibition to join with my fellow artists in painting over our drawings. However, they still exist in this 3 minute video, Drawn to the Wall V, which includes the artists at work on their drawings, the opening reception, and wall restoration.

Elaine at opening with “Two Phobias”

Since this exhibit, I’ve continued to work with silverpoint. It’s a nice change from charcoal: using a silver wire the thickness of a paper clip rather than a fist-size chunk of messy charcoal–spending hours building up darkness and tiny details with line, instead of the gray values made with the smear of a hand across charcoal on paper.

You can see the final image, statement, and details of the drawing Two Phobias  at my website blackthumbart.com, and read an essay by Sheri Boggs in the Jundt Art Museum catalog.

Thanks to photographer Christian Woods and videographer Matt Green for their documentation of the Drawn to the Wall V Exhibit.