Extend the Moment

This exercise was adapted from an exercise by Kate Darwell and Inspired by the work of Steven Christie.

You will need:

paper
pencil or pen
some Post-It Notes.

Instructions:

1. Draw an everyday moment. This is your first panel.

2. Think about what that character is doing and thinking and feeling. Draw an abstract panel representing how they feel in that moment. This is your last panel.

3. Now add four panels in between your first and last panels and (you guessed it) create a transition between them, morphing from the first panel to the last.

4. Add some narration. What is the character thinking in this moment? What seems to fit? What story best gets at the feeling we end up with on the last panel? Be as meaningful and/or comedic as you want.

Example:

Thoughts:

I love this exercise but... I found it very difficult. Kate was a talented animation student (she is no longer a student, but I’m sure she’s still talented) and no doubt found it easy and natural to transition like this from a literal image to something abstract.

I did not.

That said, I think that the slow transition from the familiar to the unfamiliar is extremely powerful in depicting mental changes that are difficult to show literally, like a loss of power, or a feeling of disorientation, or the slow creep of fatigue. I also love when abstraction is mixed with more literal imagery... because it makes me feel like the author is doing all that abstract stuff on purpose.

You can tell I have hangups about abstract images, right? I’m sorry. I genuinely love abstraction, but I went to art school and it left its mark.

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