Fresh out the box, my new RSA animation has gone live today! Inspirational thinker Brené Brown considers why we blame others, how it sabotages our relationships, and why we desperately need to move beyond this toxic behaviour.

I created this animation for the The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts (the RSA), and their fabulous series RSA Shorts.

 

The RSA is an enlightenment organisation committed to finding innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges. Through its ideas, research and 27,000-strong Fellowship it seeks to understand and enhance human capability so we can close the gap between today’s reality and people’s hopes for a better world.

 

As part of that mission, the RSA public events programme has launched RSA Shorts.  This new series provides a snapshot of a big idea, blending voices from the RSA public events programme and the creative talents of illustrators and animators from around the world. It responds to the ever-increasing need for new ideas and inspiration in our busy lives and acts as a shot of 'mental espresso' to awaken the curiosity in all of us.

The audio of this RSA short is of Dr Brené Brown who spoke at the RSA on The Power of Vulnerability. Brown suggests that blame is a way of discharging anger. When we are listening to someone's story and attempting to make connections to find out who's to blame then we are not truly listening with empathy.

Animated and directed by Katy Davis (AKA Gobblynne).

 

Starting with pencil sketches, I worked up each frame of this animation by drawing ink on paper. I then scanned my illustrations in, and cleaned and coloured each one.

 

There are 1,002 separate illustrations, as well as plenty of layered Photoshop files, incorporated into the animation.