Laura Mallaghan Illustration

Hello you. It's May Day today and Britain is celebrating VE Day! Marking 75th anniversary of the end of WW2. Also, I feel like celebrating myself that I have finally finished my moving image! Or in another name GIF. Last time I worked on animation was when I was in university, that's 5 years ago! It's been so long and quite hard to find some time as illustration-animation is time-consuming. When the lockdown happened here, I thought something to get myself focus whilst isolating in my home, is doing illustration as well as an animation! So it's a perfect time to get back on animation again.  The equipment I used in university, working on my animation project, was utterly different from what I did on this and don't have them anymore, so I improvise. I would really use a proper lightbox to inbetweening as it's easier and less hassle, I had to use a makeshift lightbox with a clear plastic box with a desk lamp inside. Not the best for workspace, very awkward, if onl...

Poem Moving Images Project - Crossing The Water by Sylvia Plath (with audio) from Laura Mallaghan on Vimeo .

Finally finished the animation and is ready for the show. I even got a little emotional at the end, i thought this will be good in show, hopefully.

Scene 7/9. The quickest scene out of all. Now i'm off to bed.

Scene 6/9. I'm taking a little break, just writing this blog, it's nearly midnight, i'll probably be done by 1 o'clock and go to bed.

Half way to completing this animation for fmp|degree show. This actually taking long time to make each scene. Yet, i haven’t start 4 A2 drawings. 😰

An experiment for animation, for FMP. Now I’m choosing to use the waterpaint, fine line pen, colour pencils and pencil.

Some swallow flying movement, i sketched it out from youtube in slow motion because it’s easy to watch their wings goes in slow way, even swallows swifts around. Then use these to experiment into gif. For the FMP, i decides to use John Clare’s beautiful english countryside poems, i have selected 5 of his bird poems and two of his animals or woodland animals poems, and also other poems of more birds, woodland animals and including countryside landscapes from different or random poets. Reason of using poems text that i will illustrates it from text, an imaginary as what i see in my thought whilst read these poems. So the gif will be includes for FMP, one gif from any poems i will select. Swallow gif experiment. Left, HB pencil and right, heavy black filled in. I actually put together from the sketches i did in my sketchbook. I took this short scene from my moving image project from 2nd year. I tweaked a bit by using the colour range, selected it and filled bold colo...

Full article of The Wisdom of Crowds is in this link :  TANK Magazine - The Wisdom of Crowds

With this project, I did enjoyed doing the gifs and moving images. But it was really long hard, frustrated, stressful work to do, even with 12 weeks project that I tried to done all 4 moving images. But, still, I am really pleased with all of my 4 moving images. So, I am happy how the bird movements and flying works really well, that how I worked out in my head and worked out from the images/photos. All good!

  Birds need water to drink and bathe during winter. Setting off fireworks near to nesting and roosting birds can cause disturbance and stress. Help the injury birds from the window accident. How songbirds survives with food during winter.

This is some kind of testing or experiment thing. This was at the end of my 2nd gif, seeing the text work. I used ink and my handwriting style I wasn’t so sure to use this text in it, and also quite fast. I may not using it for final, but we’ll find out.

An test GIF of small bird for Moving Image project. Got the wings movement quite right, bit of trouble with table even though it had been squashed in between. Going to do on long strip of paper for more spacious and comfortable to draw.

First try of GIFs animation for my uni project. This one was an experiment to see how it work.  - Crossing The Water - by Sylvia Plath - Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people. Where do the black trees go that drink here? Their shadows must cover Canada. A little light is flittering from the water flowers. Their leaves do not wish us to hurry: They are round and flat and full of dark advice. Cold worlds shake from the oar. The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes. A shay is lifting a valedictory, pale hand; Star open among the lilies. Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens? This is the silence of astounded souls. My lecturer really likes the flashing tree, as how i did the leaf fall very realistic way.