A sampling of VML:

Vector Markup Language from Microsoft runs only in IE 5or above, but supports the creation of imagery in the browser.

Drawing and animating a line a sort of simplest case

Letting the user draw a line dragging the mouse from one point to another to draw and move lines.

Building a wall of color -- something a bit simpler

Drawing a translucent rectangle over an image and dragging it around

Playing with bezier curves

A two-dimensional sinusoidal animation in JavaScript

A sampling of effects (opacity, fill, strokewidth etc.)

A few more effects (including rotation of a group)

Rotating an oval with a picture in it.

Here's a URL that describes the rest.