a·wak·en·ing

əˈwāk(ə)niNG/

Coming into existence or awareness

This is my interpretation of Awakening. The branches represent the physical aspect our thought process: our brain and nervous system which helps make sense of our surroundings and take in information. The sparrows represent our consciousness and thoughts in our head.

When we become aware of (realize) something, I imagine the sparrows taking flight, symbolizing new ideas that they explore as they fly.

This drawing was made for @juliakponsford's Art Explosion week 29!

Process

This was made with ArtRage Lite software. I first make a rough draft of the concept with a few rough strokes. I don't add in the birds until the very last part because I planned to animate them.

The rough sketch is really important for my drawing process because this acts as a guide to where the drawing should be in the canvas. I sometimes get too excited and start drawing without making a guide sketch, only to end up trashing the painting because the positioning is wrong.

Here's the process shown frame by frame:

Notice that I didn't draw the head at the beginning because I planned to animate it too, together with the birds. The girl would look up as she woke, but this proved too great a challenge for this noob. LOL. So it's just the birds and her face in the end that move.

Animation

For the animation part, I drew three different bird positions in different layers. The facial expression also changes in each layer. I just hide the 2 other layers when I save an image. Put the images together in a loop with gif maker and voila, moving birds!

Process GIF

That's it and hope you guys like the painting. You can find the contest post here. Thanks to @juliakponsford and @vachemorte for Art Explosion.

See you next time,