This flipping book will make you witness a hummingbird’s smooth flight

By Maha Hassan Last updated Apr 12, 2020

Juan Fontanive

No matter how advanced we become, humans can hardly replicate nature’s finest miracles such as the charming yet smooth flights of beautiful birds. However, trying to imitate this wonder through art is another thing altogether. Royal College of Art student, Juan Fontanive has tried to achieve this by constructing ornithology-oriented flip books that keep on flipping, page by page, with the help of hand-built mechanics. The artist sourced photographs of birds from 18^th century natural history illustrations and so, when the pictures start flipping, we catch the birds in the middle of their flight.

Fontanive has made many such similar animations before as well which comprise of graphite and colourful drawings of butterflies and other birds. Head on to his website and Vimeo to check out more of his work!