Throwaway

"Write ten songs a day, throw nine away" - Bob Dylan

One really important thing with animation is the ability to be able to throw your drawings away. We have a tendency (when creating) to treat everything you make like your own imperfect-immaculate babies.. to care for them, anything about them - be it a 'nice line' or a 'smooth curve', or a 'correct posture'. You have to take off the rose tinted glasses if you want to get your animation right. Its tough to do but you should act safe in the knowledge that second time round is always going to be better. The strength comes from the graft.

This throwaway nature is what I love about animation as an art form also. Alot of art forms we look at today are shrouded in this perrenial pretentiousness.. root it down (for my generation) to the pompousness of the WBA's... the dullness of the gallery space vs the excitement of a television screen.. whatever it is, art has a degree of pretentiousness that turns the common man away. However, everybody can appreciate a grafter when they see one, and can emphasise with effort. And in animation effort is clearly on display. We're much akin to not only the architect & designer, but the builder also. I think this 'respect' we feel when we see work that clearly has graft behind it is something that ultimately could change peoples opinion of art. It is what's lacking from Tracy Emin's bed, for example, and is so far obtuse in Damien Hirst's work that he pays people to do the graft for him, purely taking the piss. Animation can show people that there's another, more dignified means of going about your craft.