How to Draw a Heart Reflection in a Flip Book
Flip books work by tricking our eyes into thinking that we are seeing movement, when we are actually viewing short clips of the same image with slight changes on each page. Because we see the clips in rapid succession, the images blur together, and the small changes from page to page read as movement. You can make a flip book by drawing a simple image and repeating a section of it slightly differently on each page. Draw a picture of a heart reflected on water and make it look like the reflection is growing larger.
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Things You'll Need
- Blank index cards
- Stapler
- Paintbrush
- Red marker
- Blue watercolor paint
- Water
- Ruler
- Scissors
Instructions
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1
Draw a horizontal line 1.5 inches up from a shorter side of each blank index card, using a pencil. Use as many index cards as you can staple together (but don't staple them yet). The more cards, the more frames you will have, which will make the motion of your flip book more smooth. The horizontal line on all the cards will be the horizon line where the sky meets the edge of the water. It will remain the same in each frame.
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Draw a heart with the bottom point touching the middle of the horizon line. This is the original heart from which the reflection originates. It will remain the same on each page as the reflection changes.
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3
Number the cards in the upper-left corners. This will allow you to draw and color each frame in the flip book as a single page, rather than lifting pages of the flip book, and it will help you keep those pages in order. When you later assemble the book, you will not see the page numbers.
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Draw a small upside-down heart on the first page, with the bottom tip of the heart starting at the midpoint of the horizontal line, meeting the point of the right-side-up heart, and the curved part of the heart facing down. The whole heart should be below the line. Start small so you have a larger range to go from in the following drawings.
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Draw an upside-down heart slightly larger on each successive page, making the heart slightly bigger each time and always starting the tip of the heart at the midpoint of the horizontal line. Continue until you finish all pages.
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Add color to the pages by coloring in both hearts on each page with a red marker. Then paint over the reflection heart using very faint blue watercolor paint, with the pigment thinned out by using mostly water with a touch of blue. This will add a wash over the heart that will make it look like a reflection in water.
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Stack the pages together in order, with the first page on top and all pages facing the same way. Be sure the edges line up, or it will be difficult to flip the pages quickly. Staple along the top edge.
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Flip the book from top to bottom to watch the heart reflection grow, or from bottom to top to watch the reflection shrink.
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References
- Photo Credit Which way to the heart? Labyrinth, a silhouette and a heart image by Stasys Eidiejus from Fotolia.com
