Our animation students have been doing some fantastic mahi recently, tying their creative projects to the important kaupapa of a sustainable earth. It’s been great to see them engage with such a significant topic through their digital art. We’ve been using the brilliant tools in Adobe Fresco on our iPads to bring their ideas to life.

For their first mini-project, the students used Fresco’s powerful animation tools to create a spinning earth. They learnt the fundamentals of frame-by-frame animation, carefully drawing and refining each stage of the earth’s rotation. This project was a great way for them to grasp the concept of creating the illusion of movement, while also thinking about the visual details that make our planet so unique.

Following on from this, they tackled a more ambitious project: animating a seasonal change with a tree as the subject. This required them to think about how to represent the subtle, and not-so-subtle, shifts in nature. They animated the tree moving through the seasons, from the bare branches of winter, through the blossoms of spring, to the lush green of summer, and finally to the vibrant colours of autumn. It was a wonderful opportunity for them to explore how to convey a narrative and a sense of time through animation, all while reflecting on the natural cycles that underpin our environment.

Using Adobe Fresco on the iPads has been a huge success. The intuitive interface and the responsiveness of the Logi Crayon make it feel like they’re almost drawing on paper, but with all the powerful digital tools at their fingertips. This lets them focus on the creative process without getting bogged down in complicated software.

The students’ animations have been really impressive, showing not just their growing technical skills but also a thoughtful connection to the theme of sustainability. We’ll be showcasing some of their work in class soon, and I’m sure you’ll be as proud as I am of what they’ve achieved.