Art or Painting Called Sand Animation

Possible Uses for Animated Sand Painting in the Multimedia Classroom

Jul 11, 2009 Jo Murphy

The magic referred to by de Zandtovenaar when talking of sand art as "sand, light, and magic," is the endless possibilities the innovative medium provides.

There seems to be little written about sand animation. This trailer by “The Sand Magician" (De Zandtovenaar) gives a glimpse of how the artist works. He moves different coloured sands around to create live sand painting as animation. Almost certainly inspired by traditional sand painting, the multimedia art form seems to only be evolving. Because it is so new, it is hard to find much information about it. This makes the task challenging for aspiring young artists as they invent innovative methods.

The multimedia technique seems to incorporate

• a light box, which could be as simple as the light boxes animators and graphic artists use to trace when working
• a surface on which to paint with coloured sands and the absence of sand, this could be as simple as a large sheet of Perspex, it would need to be large enough that sand did not fall over the sides
• a webcam or movie camera firmly set onto tripods to keep it steady
• and music, which can be part of the script or inspiration and instigator of the story such as the lyrics of a song providing the story to be painted as an animation
• the music could be captured live or added in a programme such as Movie Maker
• captions could also be added in a software programme such as Movie Maker or Adobe Premier after the final work is complete

Sand Used as a Medium in the Context of Painting.

There are many ways the sand can be manipulated, moved around, introduced or removed from the surface of the picture plane.

Some of these methods, which are often improvised, appear to be

• pushing sand with the finger,
• blowing sand onto the surface,
• drawing with a slight instrument such as a skewer,
• using the hand to wipe the sand (often right off the surface)
• blowing sand with various levels of intensity
• sprinkling the material with various levels of intensity
• dropping particles from a cupped hand

It would seem that this form, although almost certainly inspired by traditional sand painting, is only evolving as a multimedia art form. Teachers can encourage their students to find as many ways as possible to draw and paint with and into the sand. The best way to learn about this art form is to search for examples on sites such as YouTube.com. Students could analyse the work to investigate and think about how the artists have created it. Students could then be encouraged to work with their own ideas until they develop a style of their own.

Examples of Contemporary Multimodal Sand Painting

One of the best known and most popular sand artist is Ilana Yahav who created Let's Get Together, [Jan. 2007] an art piece that can be located with a simple search of Youtube.com. The combination of popular music and the construction of paintings seems to have an attractive world wide appeal.

The work is engaging, and Multimedia students seem to enjoy working out how to do the projects. They become especially engaged and enthusiastic if they can choose music that they like. Music which provides a strong story line is best to encourage artistic expression. Students may have the ability and desire to write their own score.

Scaffolding to Ensure Multimodal Tasks Are Manageable

This example of Sand Art by world renowned sand artist David Alcala is less complex than animated sand painting. Attempting this style of sand painting first, would allow students to see how artists build up images as composition. It might be better if teachers encourage students to do simple sand paintings on canvas in preparation. Students may wish to remain working at this level until they are comfortable painting with the medium, before moving on to light shows.

Once a student has moved from sand painting to light box work, music can be gradually introduced. In this way, the learner has been able to learn about each aspect of the task separately. As the task becomes more complex, the students will move naturally toward the higher-order thinking required to combine modalities in a complex way.

Moving Projects Towards Literacy

Multimodal story telling projects provide teachers with a rich, fertile contexts within which to develop student literacy. Students can write up their projects so that they have a polished product, which can be shown with pride to the community. Within this context they can create labels, title pages, introductions and credit sheets in Movie Maker. (or a chosen programme) ESL teachers may work with students as they encourage them to subtitle the animated story in English or another language.

It will be exciting for enthusiasts to watch this artistic mode develop over the coming years. One can only imagine how new elements will add to the synergy to further add texture and life to the art form.

The copyright of the article Art or Painting Called Sand Animation in Multimedia Arts is owned by Jo Murphy. Permission to republish Art or Painting Called Sand Animation in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Sand Animation

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