Animando la ilustración e ilustrando el mundo en movimiento a través de visual literacy

Communicate or express ideas, feelings by talking is not easy if we differ in opinions. Nevertheless the image in movement as in animation happens, goes beyond language barriers and frontiers. Nowadays technology is seen as a powerful communicative tool which encourages, from the use of still images to movement, social relationships and education. Animation is a great educative tool to teach and learn stories, for what more illustrators, like Tadahiro Uesugi or Paula Sanz Caballero, are coming along to be part of animated apps, digitals books among other digital platforms. We want to share our analysis through some artists work, which show the blend of animation and illustration.
As babies we learn from our parents expressions before they teach us how to name things and construct sentences. Before any word is made, we need a visual reference. Then, is visual our first language?
Our brain, as a camera, makes a selection of images related to emotions that the body perceives in each moment, for what it’s extremely important the context in which we get language acquisition, since it has a clear influence in the way we perceive "reality". Our mind re/creates what we lived in different ways, as a movie has different versions. Perception can bring us joy and suffering depending on how we interpretate what we see. There is a dangerous thinking-feeling circle that we must keep in balance, your mind believes what you feel and feels what you believe.
Animation engages body (sensations) and mind (belief system), bringing the unconscious to consciousness. Cinema gives us a wholeness experience of the senses through visual storytelling: feeling a “real” story.
Studies from Talma Hendler (Tel Aviv) and Uri Hasson (Princeton) show us the effectiveness of the learning process from watching movies: improvement of empathy and self-awareness about the inner and out world. Movement captures our attention, if we learn visual literacy, especially through games and movies, as we learn how to write, we could understand each other deeper, improve our communication so our well-being.
From our personal experiences as animators-teachers, we could observe that the creation of an animated clip can trigger the same results as when you watch a movie, because you are experiencing concepts and emotions not just mentally but physically. You are the observer, actor and creator at the same time; it is a tremendous powerful method of self-reflection and self-expression using apps or traditional methods.
Exploring our emotions we can change our perception, so our behavior (neuroplasticity). Animation can help as a therapeutic method in cognitive art therapies.
Experiences from which we learn, are the origin of any artistic expression, collective or individual, which shape our perception. Before expressing any message it’s necessary to understand what we are dealing with. We observe, reflect and interpret what we see to obtain a lesson which later on might influence our lives. We like to believe what we see to make sense of our reality, but do we know how to read images? Human nature seeks for meaning to keep balance and feel secure. We listen our brain, our mind in action trying to predict what is next. Visual arts can “illustrate” us with a meaning to our stay in this world in constant movement.