From Forum Nokia Wiki

If you need to make some animation in Java ME Canvas, you must use a Game Loop using multithreading.

This code will be useful as a template for doing such animation.

class MyAnimation extends Canvas implements Runnable {
 
   private Thread thread;
   private boolean executing;
   private final int SLEEP = 200;
 
   public void start() {
      executing=true;
      thread = new Thread(this);
      thread.start();
   }
 
   public void stop() {
       executing = false;
   }
 
   public void run() {
      // Do some initial action
      while (executing) {
         // move objects or sprites to the next animation frame
         repaint();
         serviceRepaints();//repaint is a just a request whereas 
                           //servicerepaint is a command to repaint all 
                           //ur pending repaint requests
      }
      try {
         // Send the thread to "sleep" for a couple of milliseconds
         Thread.sleep(SLEEP);
      } catch(Exception e) {} 
   }
 
   public void paint() {
       // Draw objects on screen
   }
}