10/13/21 Lynn Tomlinson (ONLINE)
LYNN TOMLINSON
Introduction by Tianyun Lyu
Lynn Tomlinson is best known for her clay on glass animation: working under the camera, she spreads a thin layer of colorful oil-based modeling clay like thick finger paint, changing the image frame by frame in a stop-motion process, full of fluid transformations. The resulting animation looks like a living painting. Her current creative work explores environmental themes, often imagining how non-humans might view humanity’s social and environmental impact. Her work is in the collection of the education department at the Museum of Modern Art. Recent festivals include the Annecy International Animation Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Hiroshima Animation Festival, Ajyal Film Festival in Qatar, Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, and TIFF Kids. Recent gallery exhibitions include a one-person show at the University of Delaware, and group shows at Delaware Contemporary, the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Park School of Baltimore. Curatorial projects include Sister, Cities Animated (2019) and Cross-Pollinated: Hybrid Art Abuzz (2015).
Ten Degrees of Strange (2021) her most recent film, is a music video created to accompany the first single on the album Lost in the Cedar Wood, a collaboration between British environment writer Robert Macfarlane and musician/actor Johnny Flynn. This film is just beginning its festival run, and will be in competition at the Ottawa International Animation Festival this fall. The Elephant’s Song (2018), the true story of Old Bet, the first circus elephant in America, has screened in over thirty festivals around the globe, from Hollywood to Hiroshima, Ann Arbor to Athens, receiving 18 awards. The Ballad of Holland Island House (2014), the story of the last house on a sinking island in the Chesapeake Bay, received a prize from Greenpeace, screened in three dozen festivals, and received a nomination for the Student Academy Award. Tomlinson animated a segment in Fired Up! based on a speech by Barak Obama, a collaboratively-created viral video called the Best Artists Collaboration of 2017. Recent emerging media projects include Reverie de Giverny, a 360 VR piece inspired by Monet’s water lilies paintings and Kendra’s Bay (2016), an animated digital puppetry performance at Light City Baltimore, that received the New Media Award at the University Film and Video Association conference.
In the 1990s, Tomlinson’s animated spots appeared on PBS Kids, Sesame Street, and MTV. In the early 2000s Tomlinson was a director of video for Folkvine.org, an influential Digital Humanities project. She has received state Independent Artist Fellowships in Media Arts from Maryland, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Her writing on animation is published in Animation Journal; Animation Practice, Process, and Production; Con a De Animación and HyperRhiz:
New Media Cultures.
Lynn Tomlinson is Associate Professor at Towson University outside of Baltimore, Maryland. She previously taught animation production and media studies courses at Cornell, MICA, The University of the Arts, and Delaware College of Art and Design. She has led workshops and lectured at many universities including University of Michigan, Bennington College, Tainan National University of the Arts, Pratt, Bowling Green State University, Cornell, James Madison, Sarah Lawrence, Northern Vermont University, University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of the Arts.
Shengwei Zhou (szhou894@usc.edu):
ReplyDeleteI really like the concept of dehumanization and the flowing sense of time and space in Lynn's works.
Lynn's works have a very strong tendency of decentralization. This can be reflected in the character design and narrative point of view in her works. She seldom uses human or anthropomorphic cartoon characters as the protagonists of her works, but puts personal emotions to objects, scenes, animals, plants and other seemingly inhumane things. The house in the sea can be the central character of her animation. The house has no words from beginning to end, but it is full of emotions. Besides, In her works, the main narrators are often inhuman things, such as the house that provides shelter for many lives, and the pet dog that has witnessed the life of an elephant. By changing and distorting the narrative perspective, the concept of decentralization can also be better presented.
Why does her work have such a strong tendency to dehumanize? By watching most of her works, I can guess that it may be because the artist's heart is extremely sensitive to the greed and selfishness of the dark side of human nature. During the Renaissance, anthropocentrism once helped mankind emerge from the dark oppression of the Middle Ages and regain the importance of self. However, with the development of humanism to today's consumerism era, human self has expanded to infinity, exploited by onsumerism and multinational corporations, and human desires continue to swallow other species. This may drive her to rethink the status of human in this universe.
Another thing that fascinates me is the fluidity in her work. This is not only the visual style formed when she squeezed the clay for animation, but also the fluidity formed by her constantly distorting and changing time and space in the process of deformation and morph. For example, a hill in a rainstorm transforms into a forest in flames, a running wolf transforms into a river, and so on. This sense of fluidity gives people a dreamlike experience, which reminds me of Kathy Smith’s works, and also reminds me of Tarkovsky’s "Mirror" 1975 and "Stalker" 1979. In these works, fluidity is very keen to capture those indescribable emotional moments and intuitive experiences in the real world.
Thanks so much to Lynn Tomlinson for such a wonderful presentation! I truly enjoyed seeing Lynn’s unique, stylized works. And I appreciate Lynn for sharing her experience in her creative process in storytelling and visual executions.
ReplyDeleteMy personal favorite is Kendra’s Ocean—the digital puppetry work. It must have been the most fantastic thing to see the children interact with Kendra the crab and enjoy the under-the-sea experience. The bright colors and simplified style suit the setting. Kendra’s movement and personality convey her character vividly. The message about cleaning up the ocean is clear and not too overwhelming. I liked it a lot. What a fun experience!
I also liked The Elephant’s Song and Ten Degrees of Strange—the music videos. When the texture of clay animation on glass plays as a music video, the combination has a unique charm. It’s fascinating during some of the distorting transitions from one scene to another. In the beginning part of Ten Degrees of Strange, there is a part where a river-in-desert view transforms into a road-in-snowfield view. During 1:42-1:51 of the music video, two figures come out of the dark, jump into darkness, make huge splashes, jump into the sea, turn into fish, and seal and swim off. These are only a couple of wonderful examples of Lynn’s beautiful transitions! Such smoothness and liquidity are made possible because the clay overwrites all the textures between these different objects. According to her works over the years, there is no doubt that Lynn has become more and more skillful in her use of clay. In my humble opinion, Ten Degrees of Strange is a masterpiece of clay animation.
Thanks so much again to Lynn Tomlinson! Also, thank you, Sheila, for introducing such an incredible artist to our seminar. I really look forward to Lynn’s future works!
Cherry Guo (guomengy@usc.edu)
I appreciated Lynn Tomlinson for giving us such an excellent and valuable presentation. It was great to have a precious opportunity to hear stories behind these beautiful films. The most impressive part of Lynn’s creating was how Lynn used references to perfect her animation. For beginners, we always don’t know how to deal with the relationship between creation and reference. Using references for our creation does not mean blindly copying reality. Lynn’s process is a successful example of extracting valuable information from the existing reality and summarizing it to help us create. That is the reason why we can feel the vitality of the animals in these films.
ReplyDeleteDon’t be ashamed to learn from reality.
Naicheng Liu
Kacey Layson (klayson@usc.edu)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed having Lynn Tomlinson for Seminar this week, being able to see her workspace and understand her process was very interesting. Lynn is most known for her clay on glass animation and working on a down-shooter camera. I have such an appreciation for experimental animation techniques, and it grew even more through the videos of her work that she shared in class. Specifically in ‘The Elephant’s Song’, I loved how Lynn incorporated painted-over photographs and text within her clay-on-glass animation. The film was rich in texture and perspective. A lot of the paint-on-glass techniques used such as paint smears and morphing were used effectively through her transitions. My favorite part of the film was in the middle where the film almost went abstract with the oil-pastels, it felt urgent and evocative. There is something about the physicality of handcrafted animation that often cannot be replicated digitally. Lynn also spoke about her personal experiences while making her films, she wanted to find unusual perspectives and experiences. Storytelling is all about point-of-view. I think this is something that as an artist I should keep in mind for my storytelling as well, to look at things from a different perspective.
Thank you Lynn Tomlinson for sharing your story and your work with us!
I was very inspired by Lynn Tomlinson’s work last Wednesday. It was wonderful to see animation being done in a traditional medium. The oil-based clay on glass had a lovely texture to it, especially when we saw her films in high definition. I hadn’t considered working in clay so thinly, but it gave her work a lot of detail and variation. It resembled paintings but it had a tangibility, texture, and thickness to it, that was beautiful to see in motion. I could see the resemblance to Van Gogh’s pieces.
ReplyDeleteI appreciated getting to hear from a guest who is working independently within the animation field. It was nice to learn about working at an independent studio, and submitting your films to festivals and other programs. I think that being aware of the intention behind Lynn’s work added to her presentation. It was great that Lynn was so clear about her artistic statement, which surrounds the idea of the sentience of inanimate objects, and revealing unknowable perspectives. I thought that it was cool that this theme appeared in all of her pieces. It is specific yet allows for a wide breadth of stories. Lynn’s films were especially strong because she had a clear message and through line through them all.
Victoria Cruell (cruell@usc.edu)
Stefie Gan (stefiega@usc.edu)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed watching Lynn Tomlinson's films that address social issues. In particular, Elephant Song was a moving piece. The blues music added emotional to this piece, giving voice to the animal characters, Elephant and Dog. When I listened to the Elephant's solo, I felt the longing and desperation of her voice. It's the only chorus that repeats and every time she sings about her bones, I feel her pain. I thought the moment where the Dog bites the Elephant was also a crushing moment. The Dog as a more domesticated animal has sided with the human owner and turns against his fellow animals. As we pay more attention to animals in circuses, zoos, and aquariums, animation becomes a strong activism tool to give personality and voice to these animals.
It was also refreshing to see Lynn's process as she shows us step by step the act of collecting reference videos and collaging them together. It was also interesting to see under the camera techniques when she figured out she can make multiple small images in one big glass panel. Clay on glass seems a difficult technique for me to use. I enjoy seeing the textures she's able to achieve with clay, a particular favorite was in an underwater scene. The grooves craved out from clay become a school of fish and a sea lion swims in and the fish scatter. I also enjoyed seeing the multiple changes in camera and animated transitions. She reminds me that innovation can be found during the production process and also how powerful animations films can be when its content is related to social issues.
Anna Wang
ReplyDeleteawang206
I really enjoyed Lynn Tomlinson 's inspiring works. The Elephant's Song becomes one of my favorite animation short film over music. The animation was handcrafted and created frame by frame with clay-on-glass and oil pastel animation. The clay brings a very earthy quality to the animation, calling to the theme of the film. Lynn also extracted the full potential out of this medium: the fluidity, 3D effect and the color. The transition of the shots are usually morphing one object to the other by smudging the clay. The dog's whiskers are carved out and as the dogs moves around, we are focused on the depth on his face that has a 3D volume to it. The color of the clay is like the earth, or the dated sceneries, or the mountains and highlands in Africa, the homeland of the elephant. Lynn adds colorful pastels onto the circus scenes to create a contrast. The elephant is singing, but it is so so sad.
Vicky Gu (xingyugu@usc.edu)
ReplyDeleteIt was a pleasure to meet Lynn Tomlinson and hear her talk about her work. I had the chance to see Ten Degrees of Strange during this year's Ottawa and I was blown away by the technique she uses. I particularly like the underwater part and the texture of clay brings richness to the color and lines. Her clay-on-glass animation has a very organic feeling and it corresponds to the nature (pun intended) of her work. (She does have a lot of natural elements in all of her works, which I find interesting.)
I love The Elephant's Song. It is a beautiful and emotional piece and I can clearly read the message even though it was told from the dog's perspective. Or as Lynn said, it was more effective to tell the story from the dog's perspective. The texture of the clay really gave the elephant life and energy. I also love the rotoscoping she did for the chorus part of the song and the images she picked were truly sad and touching. I also love the anecdote behind The Ballad of Holland Island House and the song she wrote for the piece. The original photo of the house came to life in Lynn's film and Lynn gave the house a beautiful backstory. I also really love the artists and paintings she picked to include in this film. I was surprised to learn that she wrote the lyrics for both The Elephant's Song and The Ballad of Holland Island House, but when she mentioned that she studied literature in college it all made sense. I was fascinated by the combination of animation and poetry in her works and I wish I could write something as beautiful as the songs she wrote.
Lynn's earlier experiences as an animator for kids content such as Sesame Street was interesting as well. Those short films were really cute and whimsical. When she used to backlight her films, they looked a lot like paint-on-class animation. I was surprised by how clean those films looked because I can imagine how hard it would be to not smudge the colors together.
It was also cool to learn the behind-the-scenes of Lynn's films. It was very clever of her to do an image/video collage instead of an actual storyboard. The use of rotoscoping and working in small sections really helped her speed up her process. The size of the plexi glass she worked on was so small, yet she could include so much detail in every single frame. I wish we had her longer and see more of her animation process, but it was truly a pleasure to have her as a guest speaker!
Tianyun Lyu tianyunl@usc.edu
ReplyDeleteLynn is an artist I like very, very much. Thank you very much to Seminar for inviting her. I am really surprised and excited when I see Lynn can come as a guest, because it is an occasional. I just watched elephant's song every day. I have to watch it again because the music is so good.
So I am now studying how to combine narrative songs with animation.
I did not expect that today Lynn also shared the source of her creative inspiration. This is very important because technology can be solved, but the idea is not easy to obtain.
She also shared a lot of her creative process
I think the biggest gain is her perspective on observing things. For example, in elephant songs, she wants to put an excess between humans and elephants, but humans are too evil and animals are too pure, so she chose a middleman, a dog. Because dogs are good friends of humans, but dogs are also animals themselves, the dog’s position is very complicated. This combines the two very well.
And lynn's animation combined with hybr-experimental techniques which gave me a lot of inspiration. Thanks lynn. I hope that one day, I can also create a short film as good as Lynn’s work.
It was such a pleasure having Lynn Tomilison as speaker, she is an accomplished person and an inspiration. What really resonated with me is her background and her story of becoming an animator, how she first started studying biology and tried many different fields and majors until she found her true self. Her art and her clay on glass animation is stunning and so creative. What I like the most about her, is that she works closely and collaborates with her son and writes her own stories and animates them. I thought the Elephant song was a stunning piece, the animation and morphism and transitions looked so natural and fluid. I enjoyed her presentation and enjoyed watching her films. Thank you for inviting her to our seminar.
ReplyDeleteDina Garatly
I thoroughly enjoyed Lynn Tomlinson’s presentation. It was refreshing to see a different approach and ideology towards animation. A lot of what we see nowadays takes a huge team to put together and is usually for commercial purposes (coming from large companies), but Tomlinson’s work has the kind of beauty that only an artist pouring their soul into their craft can achieve. Elephant Song was my favorite; the animation is so impressive, the music is fantastic, and the story is so moving.
ReplyDeleteHer motivation and passion for the message she wants to convey really come across through her films. Having full creative control over her work and the freedom to pursue ideas she really cares about makes her animations so full of life and spirit. It doesn’t get watered down by passing through a lot of hands like the kinds of films made by giant studios can be. Her work ethic and discipline are commendable, and it inspires me to work harder on my own projects (outside of school and work, self driven projects I mean) and be more accountable.
Her work with clay is so impressive. How she manages to keep things clean and animate both small are large movements/details is beyond me. Her practice is filmmaking, yes, but more than that it is true artistry. She’s mastered her technique and uses it to convey stories which are meaningful and inspire the audience to contemplate ideas they normally don’t consider. I have a lot of respect for her and what she’s achieving.
-Nina Ceklic
Lynn Tomlinson’s had an interesting take on animation which she cultivated through self discipline. Her shorts really make you think, or start an interesting dialogue in your head. I also like how she incorporates her son's work with her own! That is just so inspiring! I would love to make a short by incorporating a family member or someone closer to me.
ReplyDeleteTyler Krantz, tkrantz@usc.edu
ReplyDeleteIt was a pleasure to hear from Lynn Tomlinson this week. I knew a bit about her practice having attended a lecture of hers as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. Lynn Tomlinson’s technique of oil-based clay on glass creates such a unique and distinct visual style. I find her work to be incredibly beautiful, and am stunned by the amount of time and effort she puts into every frame of her films. Although I want to work in commercial animation, I appreciate hearing from guests who work outside of the studio system. Having the opportunity to hear how Lynn works as an independent artist, from ideation, to making, and submitting to festivals, was valuable.
The Ballad of Holland Island House is an amazing feat of animation. I’m so impressed she pulled everything together in two weeks.
Gina Gonsalves - ggonsalv@usc.edu
ReplyDeleteI was very impressed with Lynn. I admire the depth of her presentation and how she explained her unique thought process. Her work is absolutely fascinating, so beautiful. I loved her painterly style, she has such a way with storytelling in her art as well as incorporating sound and music that very well reflects her work. I can see how personal she is in her work and I greatly admire her originality and unique style. Another thing I found impressive was how she uses her work to serve a purpose and give a voice to animals. I found it really interesting how she storyboards using videos, very unique process. Great guest, thank you Lynn!
Clara Chou
ReplyDeleteyuncheng@usc.edu
The session with Lynn Tomlinson is so inspirational! I really appreciate her sharing her inspiration from poems and artworks from other artists. I remember in the history class during my first year, we studied how all the great artists get influenced by all other great artists from all over the world which is so interesting. I am always fond of stop motion animation, and I really admire people who are capable and have a great artistic sense of creating content in that form. I guess it is the pure feeling of the medium and then get inspired by the arts that fascinate me a lot. I have never used clay as a medium to create stop motion animation, I should definitely try it sometimes! I really enjoy “The Elephant’s Song” so much. It’s sad but beautiful. I love the transition and the artistic choices of images are so clever. The song performance is really amazing! Thank you so much, Lynn!
I remember seeing Lynn's "The Elephant Song" online before, as it was on a list for Annecy-selected films. I have to be honest, back then I don't think I had the sensibility to fully understand the beautiful subtleties of her expressions, nor did I have the sensitivity to empathize with the plight of the elephants. Now looking at her works at a second time and hearing Lynn talk about her process, I think now I can appreciate better not just the artistry of her animation, and also the emotional energy that lies within her highly evocative visual expressions despite the roughness of the medium. Or more accurately, it is the roughness of clay and oil pastel, in my opinion, that creates the impressionistic kind of mood in a heartfelt way. Clay + oil pastel is a thick and solid medium, and when she scratched out the outline of her animated characters, it left eye-catching marks around the characters that heightens their existence. The smudginess of the paint/clay created brushwork that synesthetically gives me a feeling of dull pain and woeful sorrow. Lynn is a true artist of her own kind, and such a huge inspiration for those seeking means to fully actualize their thoughts and feelings in the best visceral way possible. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThis is Charlene Xu
DeleteVicky (Shunyi) Xie
ReplyDeleteThis week's guest speaker is Lynn Tomlinson and I am definitely surprised by her work and opened my mind about my view of animation.
The short film that she showed us about the house is very beautiful in a unique way. Just like what she said, the visual part is highly influenced by the paintings of Van Gogh. I never though about that even the clay can be a material for paintings, rather than just modeling. The texture of the clay is in-between the sculpture and oil painting which gives a unique visual effect to the animation.
Another thing that amazed me, is the amount of patience to make a film in this way. The countless small clay panel that she showed in the speak, each of them is very well done even though they only appear for 2 frames on the screen probably and when they come together, everything like perspective, volume , the movement of the objects are well presented (especially the walking shot in "The Elephant Song". As an independent filmmaker, I fully appreciate her skill and her patience.
Overall I wish we can see more films with unique style like Lynn Tomlinson's films. There are so many new feature animation comes out every year, but most of them are looks the same which is kind of boring for me. The works like Lynn Tomlinson's films always inspires me and motivated me to work hard.
Thanks so much for having Lynn Tomlinson. I really enjoy her presentation and her films. The media she is working with is really hard to control and this must take years and years of practicing. I understand, nowadays, people all want process everything very fast, so Lynn's animations is way more precious in today's age, because it has tons of stories and time behind each beautiful image in her film. Also, I really appreciate how she experiments so many techniques and media to create animation. It is amazing that I can understand more of films after listening to her working process. I think this is the beauty of the experimental animation. Both the process and the results make it complete. I am also inspired by her that she is seeking for inspiration from poems and other artists and then make stuff totally her own styles. I remember when I see her oil painting moving as animation, it is really stunning. It reminds me of the recent exhibition of Van Gogh. The appearance and feeling that oil painting can bring to us is something digital can never do. I think nowadays, we all just rely on digital softwares too much and forget to pick up the traditional tools to make art, but it is the traditional art that builds the art world today. Maybe we also need to spend some time just to try some other media to explore what more we can do.
ReplyDeleteSiqi Fu(siqifu@usc.edu)
Lynn Tomlinson's works are captivating, unique, and painstakingly difficult to create. One of the works she showed that blew me away was her music video for Ten Degrees of Strange. The animated transitions, the usage of running as a visual motif, and the overall fluidity of oil clay created an emotional and raw experience. It felt like I stepped into an impressionist painting; there are no tangible boundaries between subject and background. This can be seen when the dog transformed into the line of a river. Many of Lynn's inspirations came from impressionistic painters as well including Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh. I also liked how she showed the process behind her films. I truly understood the painstaking process of "clay on glass". Lynn Tomlinson was a great speaker! Thank you for inviting her to last week's class.
ReplyDeleteParker Chatham, pchatham@usc.edu
Last week, Lynn Tomlinson gave an inspiring talk about her career as a clay-on-glass animator. I was very surprised that her work was done in clay, instead of paint; her work has a loose, painterly quality that felt very similar to oil paint strokes. Along with her discussion with this unique medium, Lynn talked greatly about her journey as an independent animator who was deeply interested in learning. She supported education for children as exemplified in her early animation work for PBS and personal work that aimed for environment awareness. Consequently, her body of work gravitated toward themes concerning humanity, transience of life, and connection. One of her shorts The Elephant Song revealed her strength as a storyteller and demonstrated her unique skills as a painter. It was gratifying to see an independent artist share her creative process with the class.
ReplyDeleteJarrod Chatham (jchatham@usc.edu)
It was nice listening to Lynn’s talk. Her works are all amazing. The animation is really beautiful! And the lyrics too! I always hope I can write good lyrics when I have an idea. We all did under-the-camera animation in Lisa’s class. For me, I think the paint and sand animation are so difficult because they are hard to control and they are straight-ahead. But Lynn controls the clay so well. It creates a fluid transition and makes the image underwater. I really like the texture this specific medium creates. The fish scene, the sea waves, and the fire, all look gorgeous. Thanks Lynn for sharing them!
ReplyDeleteXiaoqian (xiaoqiaz@usc.edu)
I truly enjoyed our last week's seminar with Lynn Tomlinson! As a person who is also interested in speaking out and discussing social issues with my artwork and films, her music videos were greatly inspiring. "The Elephant Song" hit me the strongest. And I can see that it was also the case for many of our peers here. The power of music is non-negotiable, so I have to say the blues did a tremendous job in portraying the emotions that the elephant and the dog were going through. But what really made this film successful was Lynn's art and storytelling technique. The rotoscoping, colleague with the actual live-action footage and the whole montage of those really brought out the authenticity in an intense way. And my favorite part was how she used the perspective of the domesticated dog, considering its ambiguous status. The use of it itself creates huge nuance and irony which leaves the audience thinking and questioning. That is the kind of storytelling I want to do, and especially because I focus on telling the story of the underdogs, how to use perspective is a major key point to communicate with the audience.
ReplyDeleteAlso, her art style and techniques were very interesting too. The way she used clay on glass was unexpected (at least for me) and how she made interactive to tell stories to the children in a way more immersive way was so inspiring. As a person who likes traditional art but also is interested in mixing it up with interactive/immersive, analog with digital; I cannot emphasize more how much Lynn's seminar entertained and inspired me. Thanks, Lynn and Sheila! :)
Aloha (Haekyung) Lee (haekyung@usc.edu)
Jessica Wu
ReplyDeletewujessic@usc.edu
I really enjoyed Lynn’s lecture. In the past few weeks, we’ve had some people from the industry side of the animation field. So it was interesting to have someone who’s making their own films by themselves. Her works are sophisticated and rich in texture. I was really intrigued when she was talking about her process of working. And how she used references in her work. The opportunity of knowing an artist’s way of working is very rare and I really appreciated it. She also talked about her stories behind her films, which was also inspiring. I love The Elephant’s Song and I can’t wait for her films in the future. Thank you for the inspiring lecture Lynn!
It was a very honored opportunity to have Lynn to give us a helpful presentation of how to make the stop motion and how to create idea.
ReplyDeleteI once accidentally saw Lynn's work “The Elephant's Song ”on The Internet. At that time, I was curious, why not directly use oil painting and other pigments to do stop motion, But in this seminar Lynn explained that she always liked sculpture almost more than painting, And she just really liked that three dimensional sense, and she think, for me the clay works, because there's this tactile and your sculpture. And there's this ability to create continuous flowing transitions and imagining moves through space, so she can engage in that sort of spatial sense of three dimensional sculptural work.
She's very good at telling a story from a particular perspective.In the animation she made as a graduate student, she told a story from a posthumous perspective. We're often good at subjective narratives, but she's always trying to think about the subjective state and some unknowable subjective state, putting people in something that they can't think about。This is a very awesome point, just like The Elephant's Song. She uses a dog's perspective to elaborate this story. What surprises me most is that she even wrote The lyrics herself, how talented she is!Her animations perfectly match her lyrics, which are beautiful and touching. Thank you for invited the Lynn!
Shiqihu
shiqihu@usc.edu
It was so great to see Lynn Tomlinson's work, I remember watching some of her animations that aired on PBS. I clearly remember being fascinated me as I child. It looked like magic on the screen at the time, I always wondered "how is the animator doing this"!?. It gave me such a sense of nostalgia as I remember watching all her animation on PBS as thats what I are up watching as a child.
ReplyDeleteWhat found most impressive is the amount of flow within her work or better said how liquid her work is. Since her style/method of animation is impressionist painting on glass she is able to create transitions that are so smooth. It's incredible the way she uses the deformation of shapes to create, along with transition to, new scenes. For example in the Animation for Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane the way she used the silhouette of the dog and turn it on its side and deform the shape until its a river . My favorites scene was at the 1:47 mark to 1: 52 where two people jump in the water. Then one of the figures morphs into fish and the other morphs into a seal its was so inspiring. I definitely want to play with morphing figures and shapes as I can use this concept to create trippy psychedelic animations.
Additionally I really like how she makes all types of art. As its fun to make all types of art and mix and match media in other words experiment to come up with something out of the ordinary. I like he she tried everything she liked her story was definitely inspiring.
Pedro Chinchilla
(pedrochi@usc.edu)
Jiamu Tao
ReplyDeleteLynn’s lecture was incredibly informative. She showed a lot of very detailed process of her works, which was amazing to look at. I love how much Lynn puts herself into her work. As a commercial artist, it’s not always easy to stay true to yourself, so it’s very reassuring to see artists like Lynn who do the art firstly for herself and then for the business. I love how she creates her own lyrics too. All kinds of art in their utter form is connected, so being able to express oneself not only with visuals but also with words only adds another dimension to her artistry.
Shon Xiao
ReplyDeleteI loved seeing a speaker that engaged in a less mainstream form of animation this week! Lynn had absolutely amazing clay-on-glass work and I feel honored that she was able to share so much of her work with us.
As always, it is so comforting to see large, successful and talented animators in the industry that had a non-art related education (at least, in the beginning). Hearing Lynn talk about her early interest in bio, only to be weeded out by the vigorous curriculum, I could not help but think of myself. I entered college with a Neuroscience major, but was quickly led to change majors after I took my first chemistry course. Lynn then followed and said she attempted to get an art major, but was unable to switch over. Again, I was reminded of my own path when trying to apply for USC’s animation Bachelor’s, but was promptly rejected and so I settled for a computer science major. This background has made me worried about entering the animation industry, as I feel that my peers would be much more “ahead” of me given that others were able to focus all their academic energy on art or animation. But Lynn’s story and her amazing work shows me that late starters can still create amazing works.
It was also very inspiring to see that unconventional forms of animation are still being celebrated and utilized in industry. While the majority of animation I feel has turned towards digital or 3D animation, hearing that Lynn did an animation for Sesame Street and some commercials, I am glad to see that experimental animation is still in demand in the market. While I am not much of an experimental animator myself, I have always enjoyed seeing animations where you can feel the tactile quality and process of the animation. I hope to see more larger companies incorporating such art forms into their productions.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to appreciate Lynn Tomlinson’s inspiring works and presentation. Since I always wanted to get to know more about how to elaborate stories in alternative and physical media. Her presentation is inspiring to me not only because we can hear from her thoughtful concepts behind the stories of films. but also allow us to learn from the practical method of how to find the inspiration with the help of references. I especially appreciate the “flow” shown in her works. No matter it is the flow of the visual, story, sounds, and emotion. The different media she used for each of her films seems to be the best way to elaborate on all of the content. I feel like the mindset of keeping on exploring any art form and styles is one of the greatest motivations we should keep in mind in the future.
ReplyDeletelydia Su (lrsu@usc.edu)
This week it was a great pleasure to hear from Lynn Tomlinson! Her work was really captivating and after her talk I had greater appreciation of the detailed textures within her work. I was also very happy to hear from someone who not only is working in my home state, but also had an artist residency at my alma mater! It created a special personal connection to her work The Ballad of Holland Island House.
ReplyDeleteLynn’s perspective as an independent artist was a nice voice to hear and learn from in seminar. She gave a lot of information about working as an independent studio as well as how she submits films to festivals and other programs. Overall, her work was greatly inspiring, and I was so happy hear from someone in who animates in Maryland!
Kaisey
Lynn Tomlinson is such a prolific animator. Her work is whimsical in its musicality and playfulness with shape and form, but still reaches substantial emotional depths in its tonality and subject matter. She has a firm grasp on realism and believable motion in all her characters, which gives her the confidence to then bend and warp space and reality in the same way as she shapes her clay.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Baltimore too, and it’s really nice to hear from great animators coming from my hometown!
-Jackson Roberts (jpr02403@usc.edu)
I’m so thankful to have Lynn speak with us. Lynn is a very skillful and mindful artist, her oil clay on glass animation is unique and wonderful, and I immensely enjoy them. I love the stroke textures of oil painting. Seeing it moving is very stunning. I started my art life doing oil painting when I was 4. I tried to do oil painting animations during my college, but I didn’t do it eventually because I realized the tremendous work amount of doing it. Lynn’s sharing of her work progresses as well as her inspirations and intents are mind-fleshing. They are beautiful to look at and interesting to hear about. I finally got the idea of how to animate this form of animation. Maybe someday in the future, I’ll try it myself. Thanks, Lynn, for sharing with us!
ReplyDeleteJiayi Tang
Tangjiay@usc.edu
It’s a refreshing change of pace to have Lynn Tomlinson, an independent animator speaking with us. Lynn’s work is so incredibly beautiful and delicate, and I’ve never seen oil clay on glass being applied as a modified base for doing animation before. The material she chose gives her work such an interesting texture. I’m also really excited to be able to see the “behind the scenes” of her animation. What amazes me is that her canvas is so small that it’s even more impressive that she was able to convey such details in her work. I’ve always kind of struggled to choose between doing more independent work and working for a big studio, and it’s nice to have an independent artist share her experience and tell us about her work and her workflow. Thank you Lynn!
ReplyDeleteRuoyu Chen(chenruoy@usc.edu)
Adriel Meka
ReplyDeleteameka@usc.edu
I truly enjoyed watching Lynns presentation! It was so nice to see the moving and somber works of cinematic poetry. Her style reminded me of all the projects we got to work on in Lisa’s class and I enjoyed seeing the rough, yet elegant undertow e camera styled animation take on an ambitious narrative. I loved the experimental nature of how she gathered and collected reference footage and layered it on top of the work she was trying to produce. Technique wise it was cool to see the behind the scenes of her table painting/animation and listen to her explain how she prefers to work small and loose so she can iterate and animate more efficiently.
My favorite work was the one about the house. It was fascinating how she stated that she wanted to breath life into the house and give it a sense of character with out assimilating to the mainstream vision of a characterized house. That deviation produced a lovely and tranquil piece that was very meditative and allowed you to transcend into the world she created for her narrative. The music was amazing as well and truly added not of dimensionality to the piece. I also really enjoyed the fact hat she wrote the song that was performed in her works and truly pushed the creative depth of the project. Over all having Lynn in the class was an absolute pleasure and I look forward to seeing more of her works!
Lynn's work was amazing. They truly took my breath away. Her works are done in clay-on-glass and in stop motion format, which are the things I appreciate watching but couldn't do well myself, so seeing her manipulating such an unusual material so well really left me in awe! I especially love her storytelling ability. Lynn has such a soothing voice and so are her works. They are very delicate, sensitive and feel fragile. She is very good at using animals as metaphors and animating them. The color choices are usually elegant and in an illustrated style, which I enjoyed very much. My favorite piece among all of her works is "The Ballard of Holland Island House". The animal animation, landscape perspective changes and morphing shots in this piece is just incredible, and it gave off this mysterious and poetic feeling as well. I admire how Lynn is so enthusiastic about making her own art and so clear about her style and what she likes. Her style is consistent and really shows her personality. It was so nice to hear her talk and I was definitely inspired by her.
ReplyDeleteSydney Chen
pinghsin@usc.edu
I was deeply inspired by Lynn Tomlinson's presentation. She gave us the presentation and introduced her journey in animation so far with us by introducing a couple of her films . One of my favorites of her films is about the house by a lake. The whole animation flows really well and gives people a really peaceful feeling, and I love her use of color as well as multiple media to express the story in such a poetic way. She also mentioned that the reason why she created this project in the first place is because she saw a little house by the water on a trip, and she was intrigued to discover the story behind that little house. The story behind this project really inspired me a lot, since it reminded me that the only way to tell a good story is to look carefully in life. We as filmmakers and storytellers, our job is to tell good stories in life, and the only way to do that is get our nutrition from observing the world around us and take a better look at life. I've been not really paying attention to life since I was too focused on working and creating projects, but I would never be able to tell as strong a story if I don't pull my eyes backward a little bit and take a better look of my life, where I got all my stories from. I also really enjoyed her film ' Elephant Song' . I was deeply inspired by Lynn's works and would love to see more in the future.
ReplyDeleteRui Han (ruihan@usc.edu)
I was very inspired by Lynn Tomlinson's speech. It was such a pleasure seeing her works. Lynn is such a great artist that dedicates her unparalleled artistic talent and sensibility to traditional animation.
ReplyDeleteI love the gentle textures and fluidity in her work. The textures make everything seems to be melted in the paint, and it captures the feeling as if the memory is blurred after a long time. Those delicate transitions are the reason why I love animation so much-all the freedom brought by imagination and creativity. I really appreciate the incredible time and effort that she spent, and this magnificent piece is fantastic. There is a complexity and contradiction atmosphere in her works, which is calm but playful, sad, and beautiful that made me sadly smile while watching.
It was so great to hear from an independent artist. The career experiences she shared were also made me learn a lot.
Giulia Pan
tzuyupan@usc.edu
It was great to have Lynn Tomlinson for this week's seminar. I appreciate her unique and refreshing perspective as an independent animator and director. Her films were very well-animated and stories were all very poetic. I've tried paint on glass animation before and it was not easy. Lynn had mastered the technique and pushed it further as a storytelling tool. My favorite film is The Elephant's Song. I like the idea of animating non-human character as a focus and I think she is very successful in that as well. I was also very surprised that she wrote the lyrics herself. The whole piece just came along really nicely with a mysterious but calm energy.
ReplyDeleteChenxue Lu
chenxuel@usc.edu
From Armando:
ReplyDeleteLynn Tomlinson’s seminar was a pleasure to listen to. Her work is amazing and having abled in fine art painting in the past i loved seeing how she incorporated into her animated films. I also loved seeing her other under the camera animated works. It’s always great seeing these types of work because the craft and process of animation is shown in the final work and this isn’t present in non under the camera animation. It kind of reminds me of abstract expressionism where the process of how the painting was made is as important as the final piece. All in all I loved all of her work and loved seeing how see gets references for her own work
Armando Sepulveda Mendoza