Animations

Animated GIFS

"An animated GIF is a graphic file type that is composed of many different images on top of each other. These images are compressed and work together, creating movement, and give the appearance of a mini movie. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format"

I had started making little animations (animated gifs) quite some time ago before they became popular on so many websites.  I had taken a class in animation several years ago where we actually constructed our own zoetropes (out of old round ice cream containers), and hand drew our paper movie strips to fit inside.  

With a bunch of old family photos in hand, I did some online research and learned how to make my own (very simple) techie animations...no hand-drawn zoetrope strips needed!  These are just a few of my early examples that I've saved through the years:

I then graduated to animating the photos of some of my own assemblage and collage work:

My newest animation projects involve the use of those old TV commercials, training films, cartoons, etc. (from the 50's) and a wonderful new mac app that I recently discovered...Gif Brewery.  It allows me to convert brief clips from those vintage video files into this "animated gif"  format.  In other words, I've been highlighting tiny snippets of "looping" video that have caught my interest. Any of these animated gifs can be placed onto webpages, emails, google documents, etc., as a photo, but they play like a little movie...pretty cool! These are just a few of my most recent creations:

A couple recent Gracie (the labradoodle) animations: