The Art of Animation

Cartoons, feature-length films, cel work, stop-motion, all vastly different ways animation can be created, produced, and presented, yet an astounding amount of people are still under the belief that it is strictly for younger audiences. Animation, in essence, is drawing movement (Taylor 7). This can be achieved using methods such as individual drawn frames, computer-generated images, cut-out animation, and many more. Although the process is meticulous and tiring, the end result is usually gratifying and worth the hard work. Animation can also fit any genre and can appeal to any age group, something many people tend to overlook. This assumption that generally all animated works are vapid and childish harshly compromises the animation industry and those who participate in it. Animation should be considered a credible form of media and, essentially, be recognized as an art.

The first development of animation dates back to the late nineteenth century, where it was created mainly using clay, puppet, frame-by-frame drawings and cut-out techniques (“Origins”). Other techniques and devices used to create animated works around the time were praxinoscope, which is a device that utilized mirrors to project a sequence of images onto a fixed screen (Pollard) and rotoscope: A technique which in an animator traces and draws, frame-by-frame, directly onto film. Although animation had come to fruition as a feasible way to create art many years before, it was not until Walt Disney released “Steamboat Willie”, one of the first animated pieces to have audio, that it was perceived as a plausible form of entertainment in the western hemisphere (Pollard).

On the other side of the globe, particularly East Asia, artists and cartoonists also began thei...

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