Watch A Cerebral Animation Illustrated With Ink, Coffee, And Whiteout

Images courtesy of the artist

Boston animator Jake Fried doesn't plan, sketch, or storyboard. He eschews traditional animation tools for a combination of whiteout, gauche, ink, and coffee. His process necessarily destroys his own work as he creates it. But while his practices can seem idiosyncratic, the result is a series of "moving paintings," which channel Fried's artistic instincts directly into viewers' brains.

Fried's latest work, Brain Lapse, is a mintue-long journey through mountains, jungles, and bathroom mirrors, with the meticulous detail that fans of his illustration style have come to expect. Those 60 seconds represent four months of illustration, improvisational animation, and frame-by-frame scanning. These simple, though often arduous steps, allow Fried's drawings to bloom about their frames; landscapes transform into portraits, and portraits into still lifes in the blink of an eye, overlapping and eclipsing one another to progress from scene to scene.

Fried doesn't aim to tell one particular narrative or story, since in his work, he told The Creators Project, "the medium is the message." Instead, he communicates the feeling of forward movement and transformation at a breakneck pace, with no sign of stopping, and no way to keep track of all the details. Previous works like Headspace and Drawn Into Nothing use similar techniques, but Fried has clearly reached a new level of detail and fluidity with Brain Lapse.

The Creators Project talked to Jake Fried about his process, the meanings behind his work, and, perhaps most importantly, why he draws with coffee.

The Creators Project: How did you begin illustrating with ink, whiteout, and coffee?

Jake Fried: Each animation I make is on one high-grade piece of paper, consecutively scanned as I add ink, white-out, coffee, and other materials. I've been working with ink for a long time, but only began using whiteout and coffee when I started experimenting with animation. I have to let the surface dry before I can scan each frame, so I found whiteout to be the best fast drying paint to use. It's also much easier to draw on top of and takes longer to accumulate when layering the over 1500 frames created for each film. After trying out different methods, I found that I enjoyed the way the whiteout absorbs the coffee and creates interesting stains that balance with the fine pen and ink details. Overall I like the idea that my intricate, fast-moving films are made with simple, everyday materials.

How far ahead do you plan the intricate, evolving landscapes of your timelapses?

My films are not really pre-planned, they become themselves through the process of making. I try to let the work tell me what's next. I fundamentally believe art-making should be a "discovery" process, otherwise I have no interest. I want to learn something new or follow some unknown path, rather than just executing a plan.

Is there an underlying narrative for Brain Lapse?

My work is not truly narrative—the medium is the message—but for my latest piece, Brain Lapse, I knew I wanted to play with the idea of images being built-up then torn away and reconfigured. This idea that everything is shifting around you. If there's an underlying story in my work, it is a more archetypal journey—some sort of awakening or transformation.

Your animations contain massive amounts of detail in each frame and move very quickly. What kind of emotional response are you hoping to get out of your audience?

I'm not really going for one specific emotional reaction—I like when someone described my work as "drawing out the anxieties, confusion, and immediacy of living."

In order to create the stories in your videos, you have to keep destroying each layer. What does the process of "erasing" add to the overall meaning of the work?

A big part of the philosophy behind this work is that it's always evolving and changing—the journey being more important than any destination or final image. Everything that comes before informs what comes after as the work builds on itself. I'm extremely fascinated by this idea of having an artwork continuously morphing as if it were a living organism.

How long does it generally take you to make a one-minute video?

I spend about four months on average for each of my films.

What other illustrators have influenced your personal style? What about timelapses / timelapse artists?

That would be a long list—I work at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and find myself being as influenced/inspired by Ancient Egyptian tombs as Contemporary Painting. R Crumb's hyper-detailed ink drawings are certainly an influence on my specific style—I would also add Philip Guston and James Ensor as major influences. And I have to mention William Kentridge as a predecessor to the kind of drawing/film work I'm exploring.

How do you plan out the intricate, evolving landscapes in your animations?

I really don't plan out anything ahead of time. I don't storyboard, don't practice sketches, or use reference material—I want everything to happen in the work, let it reveal itself to me on the page.

What's next for you?

I'm just going to continue on the path that I'm on and see where it takes me. I think the value and insights of my individual films grow as I add more to the body of work. I have several screenings coming up this Fall that I'm excited about and more exhibitions being planned for the future.

Visit Fried's Vimeo page or his website to see more of his "moving paintings," or to buy one of his intensely detailed prints.

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