Rousseau and Animation Project

Rousseau:

Going to the Tate Modern is almost always special, but it is a rare experience to have access to such a rewarding and challenging exhibition. From the moment we arrived in the first gallery room, we were fascinated! The first six rooms revealed the range of Rousseau’s work and his artistic development. We were fascinated by the jungle paintings, getting lost in their exotic and dense foliage and finding animal after animal peeking through the fronds and creepers. His portraits and Parisian landscapes were also captivating. Together they gave an unusual experience because they told a story of a self-taught painter who combined scenes of his home town and local people, with images from a part of the world which he never saw first-hand during his lifetime.

In the resources room we discovered what had inspired Rousseau! There were photographs, early black and white silent films, books, postcards and other memorabilia arranged around the room to give the visitor an idea of the big events in Parisian life in the 1880s. Rousseau had been immersed in a city which was receiving objects, plants, animals and many other items from all over the world, including Africa and the Far East. Rousseau went to the museums and fairs which showed these objects and drew. His jungle was a manifestation of his imagination, inspired by the collections of the museums in Paris. In our day and age, when flying away on holiday is so commonplace, it is hard to understand the lack of freedom which he faced.

Animation:

Last year’s animation project was a huge success – a thrill for the animators and an exciting experience for all the parents who were able to attend our showing at the end of the project. This year we have got off to a great start! Year 6, as last year’s Year 5, already have a great deal of technical knowledge and were able to get to grips with the camera and software straight away. They have often been able to help Year 5 and, as we animate in pairs, one person at the camera, another at the computer, this element of teamwork has been really successful.

We have practiced animating a bouncing ball, then adding a character face and then finally choosing a colour scheme for the character. The results have been really impressive and we have really enjoyed seeing the process from start to finish: firstly, dealing with the movement of the bouncing ball, then designing a character and identifying how we are going to make it move and, finally, working in colour, which is a surprising challenge when your character’s shape and position is constantly on the move.

At the time of writing, we have been drawing a character from our own imagination and drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing . . . and drawing that character until we really know it inside out! We have even interviewed our characters so that we really know them well and can begin to think of a really good short story for our characters. Now we are working on our storyboards ready to start animating. Watch this space, we might even have some animation on the Internet soon! In fact we think we might call it:
Dallimation!