Cel Animation

A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid (consisting of cellulose nitrate and camphor) was used during the first half of the 20th century, but since it was flammable and dimensionally unstable it was largely replaced by cellulose acetate.

Generally, the characters are drawn on cels and laid over a static background drawing. This reduces the number of times an image has to be redrawn and enables studios to split up the production process to different specialised teams. Using this assembly line way to animate has made it possible to produce films much more cost-effectively. The invention of the technique is generally attributed to Earl Hurd, who patented the process in 1914. The outline of the images are drawn on the front of the cel while colors are painted on the back to eliminate brushstrokes. Traditionally, the outlines were hand-inked but since the 1960s they are almost exclusively xerographed on. Another important breakthrough in cel animation was the development of the Animation Photo Transfer Process, first seen in The Black Cauldron, released in 1985.

Lesson Goal: Create a painted background and an acetate foreground with your character inked on the front and painted on the back.

Target 1:Develop a character and a setting in rough form

Target 2:Create the painting for your background.

Target 3:Draw your character on tracing paper over top of your background

Target 4:Trace your character onto acetate and color them in on the backside with paint.

T-Shirt Design

A T-shirt, or tee shirt, is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a crew neck, which lacks a collar. T-shirts are generally made of a stretchy, light and inexpensive fabric and are easy to clean. The T-shirt evolved from undergarments used in the 19th century and, in the mid-20th century, transitioned from undergarment to general-use casual clothing.

T-shirts are inexpensive to produce and are often part of fast fashion, leading to outsized sales of T-shirts compared to other attire.[1] For example, two billion T-shirts are sold per year in the United States,[2] or the average person from Sweden buys nine T-shirts a year. In the 1960s, the ringer T-shirt appeared and became a staple fashion for youth and rock-n-rollers. The decade also saw the emergence of tie-dyeing and screen-printing on the basic T-shirt and the T-shirt became a medium for wearable art, commercial advertising, souvenir messages, and protest art messages. Psychedelic art poster designer Warren Dayton pioneered several political, protest, and pop-culture art printed large and in color on T-shirts featuring images of Cesar Chavez, political cartoons, and other cultural icons in an article in the Los Angeles Times magazine in late 1969 (ironically, the clothing company quickly cancelled the experimental line, fearing there would not be a market).  Custom T-Shirt artwork is now a common artform in nearly every American town today.

Project Goal:

Create a T-Shirt design with personal meaning that uses 3 or more stencils to create the finished artwork.

Monochromatic Painting

Monochromatic colors are all the colors (tones, tints, and shades) of a single hue.

Example of a monochromatic color scheme

Monochromatic color schemes are derived from a single base hue and extended using its shades, tones and tints. Tints are achieved by adding white and shades and tones are achieved by adding a darker color, grey or black.

Monochromatic color gradient on color wheel

Monochromatic color schemes provide opportunities in art and visual communications design as they allow for a greater range of contrasting tones that can be used to attract attention, create focus and support legibility.

The use of a monochromatic color provides a strong sense of visual cohesion and can help support communication objectives through the use of connotative color. The relative absence of hue contrast can be offset by variations in tone and the addition of texture.

Monochromatic in science means consisting of a single wavelength of light or other radiation (lasers, for example, usually produce monochromatic light), or having or appearing to have only one color (in comparison to polychromatic). That means according to science the true monochromatic images can be strictly created only of shades of one color fading to black.

Project Goal:

Create a watercolor painting from a reference photo using just one color and controlling the mixture of paint to water.