Frank & Ollie, Drawn Together

In 2003 the Academy presented an evening honoring animation powerhouses Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Needless to say, it was a fantastic event. I was lucky enough to be part of the group of presenters.

Here are the pages from the program that was handed out. It was also fun to help design the cover image.

I just found out that some of the presentations can be viewed on Frank & Ollie's old website here:

https://frankanollie.com/AtTheAcademy.html

Behind the Scenes....

I love photos that show animation artist at work during the medium's golden age. It's always a thrill to find new pics that take you back to a time when animation was this incredible, handcrafted art form.

Lisa Davis (Anita) and Eric Larson studying a Dalmatian. 

Hal King working on one of the original Winnie the Pooh shorts.

Frank Thomas checking rough inbetweens for one of his Pinocchio scenes.

Walt Peregoy with a few of his color designs for The Sword in the Stone. 

Kathryn Beaumont acting as Alice during the Caterpillar sequence.  

Retta Scott animating a Centaurette scene for Fantasia. 

Marge Champion is being filmed as Snow White. The person in the foreground looks like Art Babbit to me. 

An ink and paint artist working on a Pecos Bill cel.

A cel painter finishing a cel with Aurora.

Walt Disney during a lunch meeting at Disneyland. I recognize John Hench in the back and Marc Davis in front.

Lady Tremaine

These are clean up studies for Frank Thomas' character of Lady Tremaine in Cinderella. I don't know who the artist is, but these poses (except her head turn) are based on Frank's brilliant animation. 

A difficult character to animate, and equally difficult to clean up, because of realistic subtleties involved. When Walt asked Frank to take on this assignment, he thought: Poor me! But the more he got involved with her personality and her voice recordings by Eleanor Audley, the more he understood just how much to underplay her movements in order to get a very powerful performance. One of Disney's best villains. 

Rose

My designs for  the  character of Rose. The movie's title was My Peoples. It ran into story issues and was eventually shelved. Rose and her love interest Elgin were going to be traditionally animated, while other characters such as a group of mechanical folklore puppets would appear as CG characters. 

I animated some test footage with her, and was looking forward to be working on a female protagonist. She was going to be voiced by actress Ashley Judd.

Jane Goodall

 

Our planet needs more people like Jane Goodall. To say that she will be missed is an understatement.

In 2019 I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting her at an event at the Walt Disney Family Museum. That special evening included an auction of artworks to benefit one of Jane's charities.

I wanted to contribute a wire sculptor, and I remembered a beautiful photo from an early National Geographic article. She called this junior chimp  Flint. 

He might make a nice wire sculpture, I thought. First I looked at some chimp drawings I had done earlier before starting to work with the wire.

The last photo does not show Wire Flint from his best angle, but you get the idea.

Here's to Jane Goodall, an ambassador for chimpanzees, wildlife, people and our earth!  

Marc Davis Art Prints for Sale

Here is your chance to own a beautiful Giclee print of a Marc Davis painting. I have a few of those myself. The printing quality is top notch. The prints are signed by Marc, and the prices are fairly low. There are plenty of images to choose from. This is only a small selection.

Here is the website:

https://marcdavisfineart.com/

https://www.etsy.com/shop/marcdavisfineart/?etsrc=sdt&dd_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fmarcdavisfineart.com%2F&page=1#items

Wildlife Sketches

Now that the weather in Southern California is getting cooler it is time to return to the zoo and sketch!

Here are drawings from a sketchbook dating back a few years. Most of them were done from life, some of them from wildlife documentaries.  As I said before, if you are a newcomer to drawing animals, it is essential to start drawing them from real life. Spending time in front of animals and observing them is the only way to get started.  

But since you don't get wild animal behavior at the zoo, it is equally important to then study footage of wildlife. Freeze individual frames, analyze the motion and pick a frame that informs you about the animal's character. 

Like Eric Larson said, for an artist one of the most important things is: Observation!