Watching Ourselves Change

This animation was started 50 years ago. Wanting to practice on my new graphics tablet and explore Photoshop’s animation features, I used a photo of a six foot painting I did in my youth as a template to draw progressively, frame by frame, a new version of the painting.

As I drew them again I could not help but contemplate the days when I first painted this collage of faces. I could still recall the feelings, smells and space of that studio in the art department of San Diego State University. And I felt the journey from there to here knowing that many faces in my life have quit the earth during that time.

So, the old analogy of the formation of humanity seen in the development of an artist’s work clearly suggested itself to me. And all the faces I first used for that collage were drawn from photos of real people in that day – photos already from the past, faces I developed further for the original painting, and redrew 50 years later to develop as an animation.

The artist usually thinks more about their creation than anyone else will take the time for. But this animation could be another opportunity for you to contemplate the faces, the humanity, and the formation which brought us to this moment.

Occasionally we can see ourselves changing and observe it as
a progression,
not a disintegration.

That’s my Easter view.

6 Responses

  1. Ronald Holt

    Mark, What a wonderful rendition of something you started so long ago and now brought to this with technology. It must have been quite a feeling to have the smells and space come back into your mind as you worked on it as well as those who have left. Thank you for sharing, it is inspiring. Ron Holt

    • markart

      Ron, Thank you for watching this and for the kind response. It wasn’t too many years before we met that I was in that art studio. We keep flowing forward by God’s grace. Peace and health be yours. — Mark

    • Mark T

      Thank you, Kathleen. If course this is about 73 frames (flowing slower than 30 frames/sec.) . So, that might be worth 73k words … ?

    • markart

      Thanks for the request, Robert. Hope you’re well and strong these days.