Lucia Forte ’26
From painting to woodworking, sculpting to sketching, and everything in between, the EA art program is known for its talent across different art forms. The December Artist of the Month, Hanna Tian ’23, contributes to the culture of creativity through her skillful work in 2D digital art and animation.
Photo courtesy of Hanna Tian ’23
Tian explains that her love for animation began in third grade. She says, “I watched a lot of YouTube when I was a kid, and I found animation YouTubers: Jaiden Animations and The Odd 1s Out. I got into that genre and just kinda stayed there. They were the ones who first inspired me to start animations.”
Digital art and animation work is a time-consuming yet rewarding process. Tian explains how she begins and carries out the process of animation. Her projects begin simply with an idea. She states, “I start with an idea, maybe I draft a few keyframes, and then I start adding in more rough frames in between those keyframes. Then, if I like the direction it’s heading, I start adding details and making the images cohesive and making them into actual frames.” Although, this process does present challenges. Tian explains that a “ten-second animation could potentially take four to six weeks to complete, depending on how high-quality the animation is.” Tian describes animation as “really tedious and repetitive. Especially if you are working by yourself, it is sometimes hard to get through all of that [work] and there are deadlines that you have to meet.”
Tian attended an animation program over the summer. She says, “The final project was to do a 15-second short film in six days. In the beginning, I thought there was no way I’m finishing this, but by the end, I had gotten through all the work and ended up with over 20 seconds of animation. It was challenging, but also fun and I learned a lot.”
Her favorite project that she has worked on so far was a video-game-inspired college portfolio that included concept art and animation. Tian continues, “As part of my applications, I submitted a game design portfolio, which just featured conceptual art and animation for a concept game I have developed. They included concept art for characters, backgrounds, and bosses as well as a conceptual animation of some characters. The animation took about three weeks to make and render. I took inspiration from open-world games when creating backgrounds and mixed in a few RPG [role-playing game] elements.”
Photo courtesy of Hanna Tian ’23
David Sigel, Upper School Art Department Chair, comments on Tian’s influence on others in the classroom, stating, “She leads by example through her dedication to art and graphic design.” Mia Filipovski ’23 continues, “She is quiet, but then she pulls out this amazingly detailed piece. Everyone is like ‘whose is that?’ and of course, it is Hanna’s.”
Tian says that she gathers inspiration for many of her projects from music, outsider art, or other inventive encounters she notices in her everyday life. She comments, “I take a lot of inspiration from the media around me. If I’m listening to a cool song or show, I’ll think ‘this lyric is cool, this character is interesting’ and then formulate a way to execute that idea in an art form.”
Tian loves art because “it’s a form of expression. Communication is not always the easiest to convey, and art allows people to express themselves without using words.”