From story to animation: Jess and Wiggle

Once there was a little girl

With the cutest reddish curl

Her name--how could you guess?

It was simply--Jess

So started a poem I wrote for a little girl named Jess, who was looking at the world with such an intense, serious observation, as if to ascertain if anything or anybody was worthy of a smile. Once the ink dried on paper, each verse, each individual word started forming shapes in my mind. So here is the title page:

You can see that from the start, the word 'Jess' became her face. Her expression changes over the course of the story from sad to happy. Likewise, the word Wiggle was drawn, literally with a wave in it, one 'g' rolling around the other. 

Other words soon followed, becoming pictorial elements that express their meaning. For example see the word 'not' (drawn a stop sign) and the 'you' (a finger pointing at you) in the text at the bottom of the image below.

For me, it took three months to complete the animation. Check it out:

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Jess and Wiggle