Cool blue GIFs from Qianwen Yu

There have been heat waves around the world this summer, but Qianwen Yu has created a series of animated GIFs that might cool your brain or at least make your social posts a little more chilled. Qianwen is an artist who loves exploring with fabric in her animation projects. For her series entitled Summer, created for Giphy, she decided to experiment with cyanotype – a photosensitive substance that turns deep blue when exposed to sunlight.

The ten mini stop-motion animations she created have been a bit of a hit, with 200 million views in the first two days. Qianwen has also edited them into a 50-second short animation, which was screened at the Moonlighters animation event in Chicago on 10 July.

“Cyanotype is a classic photographic technique that uses sunlight to create images,” explains Qianwen. “It produces blue prints, and transferring my drawing onto fabric under the scorching summer sun aligns perfectly with the theme of this project – summer. The blue colour brings a bit of coolness in the heat, and the tactile quality of the fabric adds an extra sensory dimension to the visuals, enhancing the overall experience of the project.”

The process itself was also very tactile. First, Qianwen came up with a series of suitable summery phrases and puns to sketch. Printed onto acetate, the artworks were placed over fabric coated in cyanotype, leaving the line work in negative on the exposed swatches. The fabric was washed, and the exposed areas turned dark blue. Then, each piece was shot, and the frames for the stop-motion animations were assembled, with sound effects added.

“Since these are meant to be social stickers, having fewer frames is better, as it makes the message easier and quicker to understand. Therefore, my motion work focused on visualising the keywords in the text,” says Qianwen. “I’d love to make the animation longer and include more movement, though.”

A graduate of the School of Art Institute of Chicago’s Film, Video, New Media and Animation MFA programme, Qianwen loves using textiles, hand-drawn elements, and stop-motion techniques in her films. Previously, she has created an indigo-dyed animation about her hometown of Guangxi in China, in addition to her projects using found textiles gathered from various sources.