Charcoal animation workshop for adults with David Begley

Making a charcoal animation is immersive and exciting – seeing your image begin to move and come to life is wonderful. For David’s animations, he gathers sticks and bakes driftwood charcoal. Driftwood charcoal gives a deep, soft black and is ideal for animation as it erases easily.

In this workshop David will explain how to bake charcoal and set up your drawing for stop motion animation recording. He will discuss how to create a storyboard, an animatic, and plan an animation, choice of paper, using a digital camera to record your drawings, lighting, frame rates, editing, software, and sound design. This workshop makes charcoal animation accessible for all levels.

David Begley

David Begley is an award-winning Irish artist, filmmaker, charcoal maker, and arts educator. He works across drawing, painting, monotype, video, sound, and animation. He has exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally.

His work moves between figuration and abstraction and is often inspired by invented mythologies. To make his large drawings and animations he gathers driftwood along the Wexford coast and bakes it into charcoal, producing a deep, soft black. Flame, smoke, and breath recur throughout his monochrome works, where elemental processes become part of the image itself.

Begley has facilitated workshops at IMMA, Chester Beatty, Mermaid Arts Centre, Butler Gallery, and Garter Lane Arts Centre. He contributed to Making Charcoal for Artists by Kate Boucher (The Crowood Press, 2024).
David is currently working on an animation commission based on the life of Frieda Belinfante. See animations by David Begley at:
https://www.davidbegley.com/animation