Digital time-lapse video depicting the illustration process of Rachelle A. Baker

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A silent time-lapse MP4 file depicting the illustration process for a magazine cover by visual artist Rachelle A. Baker, commissioned by Elle Décor. The video opens with a frame of the final sketch that was ultimately used for the magazine’s cover, before quickly jumping to a blank screen. At 00:00:01, a vertical brown line appears towards the left portion of the screen, before quickly disappearing. By 00:00:02, four (4) parallel horizontal brown lines appear from the right edge, stretching to the middle of the screen where they intersect perpendicular to another brown line. Several other brown lines appear in the right angle formed by the previous four lines but are instantaneously erased. The video continues in this fashion, with lines appearing and disappearing until more brown lines that connect to the persisting right angle appear and remain, loosely creating the outline of a room with a barrel vault ceiling, wall moldings, and double doors.

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