Monday, December 7, 2020

Holiday Art

I love this pastel sketch by Mel Shaw for Disney's The Small One. Beautiful composition and color mood. I swear, Mel knocked out illustrations like this, one after the other. I witnessed this during Black Cauldron, Mouse Detective, Beauty & the Beast and Lion King. He was a wizard!


A pretty holiday painting by Disney background artist Art Riley. Probably for a Christmas card. Riley worked on many features as well as shorts from Pinocchio to Jungle Book.


Christmas Carols of the canine kind. Mary Blair painted this image for an early version of Lady & the Tramp. The final version of the film does not show her influence as far as color styling. But Cinderella, Alice and Peter Pan all have a Blair touch.



A charming seasonal color sketch by Preston Blair. The looseness and movement  reveal that an animator painted this. Incidentally Mary Blair was his sister in law.
Preston worked at Disney during animation's golden age. After the strike he animated for Tex Avery and later for Hanna-Barbera.


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9 comments:

  1. AetheriumDecember 8, 2020 at 1:45 AM

    These are all lovely.
    Mel Shaw was an incredible artist, I especially like his conceptual work for The Black Cauldron.
    Happy holidays, Andreas :)

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  2. J ScribblesDecember 8, 2020 at 3:16 AM

    Das Bild von Mary Blair gefällt mir am Besten. Sehr atmosphärisch!

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  3. Nicole KlementzDecember 8, 2020 at 3:39 AM

    The perspective, the scenery...
    Mel Shaws picture is extraordinaire awesome! :)

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  4. Marc HendryDecember 8, 2020 at 8:34 AM

    Andreas, you've gotta see this Heinrich Kley sketchbook if you haven't already
    https://youtu.be/OjlUdU7CsuE

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    Replies
    1. Andreas DejaDecember 8, 2020 at 5:47 PM

      Thanks for the link, Marc. Great video on the Key sketchbook.
      The Disney family owns a few of those, all unpublished.

      Delete
  5. Jarl MidelfortDecember 8, 2020 at 3:28 PM

    Thanks for sharing! I wish a few nice prints were available for some of these, they'd make fun gifts.

    Not really on the theme of holiday art, but I recently saw a few Dumbo storyboards/concepts on Heritage that looked like Bill Peet, actually quite a few looking like his. Is it normal that Heritage doesn't at least speculate who drew boards and thumbnails like these?

    https://comics.ha.com/itm/animation-art/dumbo-gorilla-mother-and-baby-deleted-scene-storyboard-art-group-of-2-walt-disney-1941-total-2-items-/a/7235-99820.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

    https://comics.ha.com/itm/animation-art/production-drawing/dumbo-circus-scenes-with-elephants-storyboard-thumbnail-art-group-of-7-walt-disney-1941-/a/7235-99822.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Open-ThisAuction-120115

    https://comics.ha.com/itm/animation-art/concept-art/dumbo-elephants-and-other-animals-concept-sketch-art-group-of-3-walt-disney-1941-/a/7235-99823.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Open-ThisAuction-120115

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    1. Jarl MidelfortDecember 8, 2020 at 5:49 PM

      Huh the gorilla board I linked above was Joe Rinaldi, looks like I just need to read a bit further on those Heritage pages. Sounds like his work has been mistaken for Bill Peet's before too! Thanks for all your wonderful and educational posts Andreas.

      http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/04/joe-rinaldi.html?m=

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    2. Andreas DejaDecember 8, 2020 at 6:26 PM

      People mix up Peet's and Rinaldi's work al the time. And yes, art descriptions at auctions aren't always accurate.

      Delete
  6. Dan SicilianoDecember 9, 2020 at 8:54 AM

    Art Riley's holiday picture reminds me of the "Once Upon a Wintertime" section of "Melody Time". Maybe he was a background painter on it?

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