Veteran Golden-Era Disney Animator and author of 'The Illusion of Life' Ollie Johnson has suggested in the past that hand drawn animation is as much about thinking through the process of drawing as it is executing the technical aspects of animation. Johnson stresses 'Don't illustrate words or mechanical movements, illustrate ideas or thoughts, with attitudes and actions'.
Animation is as much about expression of emotion through the art of drawing as it is the technicalities of the form. Johnson suggests that animation is 'as much about seeing, recalling, proposing performance and delineating concepts as it is about the drawing itself'. There is a complex language of expression to drawing, the purpose of which is often processed in one of three ways...
Journalistic: an act of reportage.
Documentary: an attempt to capture the observed as realistically as possible.
Experiential: imbuing the person or object with the established conventions of art.
Observational drawing, and by extension, traditional animation is Experiential, therefore all about capturing the feel of a moment, and not necessarily capturing a moment as realistically as possible. It is about capturing the essence of an object or person through gesture and posture and in animation, these things during the passage of time from a set vantage point, from which we the viewer observe this fictional world of sign and symbols, representative of something observed and interpreted.
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