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Talking Flowers
The flowers in Disney's Alice in Wonderland have attitude issues. Friendly at first when a downsized Alice approaches them, but then their demeanor turns hostile. Alice is even called a weed.This is...
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Grand Design
A gorgeous color sketch of the Lackey from the film Sleeping Beauty by Milt Kahl. I love the contrast  within the shape arrangements. Bulky body on very skinny legs. Milt went even further when he drew...
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Grand Design II
Fred Moore drew this pose of the dwarf Happy twice. First as a lively intuitive rough, then as a tie down. What I love so much about this drawing is that it shows Fred's natural sense for interesting...
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World Lion Day
August 10 is World Lion Day.In light of the recent horrific events surrounding Zimbabwe's lion Cecil, it is important to reflect on these magnificent animals...and their dwindling numbers in the wild....
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D23
What a weekend!!!!I have no idea why I did this...With Kathryn Beaumont-Levine during our lunch.With Roy Patrick Disney, his wife Sheri and Roger Viloria.With Ron and John.With Dick Van Dyke and Sybil...
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Disney Mix II
You can find great Disney art within many stages of film production. This color sketch by Mary Blair for Alice in Wonderland is amazing to me. She uses the most intense red as the main backdrop without...
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Wart as a Sparrow
In this scene Wart (as a sparrow) seems for a moment smitten with Madame Mim (as a beautiful Girl). Why Mim looks like a younger version of Madame Medusa here becomes clear when you consider that Milt...
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Coming to a Bookshelf near You...
...toward the end of next month:- Hardcover, almost 400 pages- Hundreds of drawings by the Nine Old Men, most of them never published before- Insight into their creative process- Stories about their...
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Ruthie Thompson
During the Legends Lunch a little over a couple of weeks ago I was happy to see a true Disney Legend, Ruthie Thompson. The first time I met Ruthie was five years ago, when she visited Disney Animation...
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Louis Prima
What a great photo montage with King Louie next to jazz musician and trumpeter extraordinaire Louis Prima, who also voiced the character. The Sherman brothers wrote the signature song "I wanna be like...
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Tease 2
This gorgeous Merryweather scene by Frank Thomas will be part of my book on The Nine Old Men. The most important key drawings will be shown in sequence.
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Jungle Book Layout/Background
This has always been fascinating to me: The relationship between Disney layouts and final backgrounds. It is interesting to see what the background painter changed from working with the layout. For...
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Jungle Book Layout/Background II
In this photo Disney background artists Al Dempster, Bill Layne and Art Riley are examining character color model cels and background paintings for The Jungle Book.You can see that early edgier work by...
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Tease 3
I will be discussing this Maleficent scene by Marc Davis in my upcoming book The Nine Old Men.Most key drawings will be shown in sequence. It is interesting to see how rough this scene is drawn,...
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More Liu Jiyou
These stunning paintings appear in a book on Chinese painters, which I recently purchased.Beautiful brushwork and gorgeous watercolor textures. Liu Jiyou studied Western painting and incorporated its...
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Tease 4
One of Madame Mim's best acting moments, and one of my favorite Frank Thomas scenes.The witch is setting the rules for the wizard's duel against Merlin: "(Rule one: no mineral or vegetable!) Only...
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Pinocchio Premiere
It is a mystery to me why Disney's Pinocchio wasn't as big of a box office hit (in its first release), if not bigger, than Snow White had been. The film deserved that. So it wasn't a romantic love...
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Tease 5
Milt Kahl was a junior animator in his 20s when he animated this scene with a dove "delivering" a kiss from Snow White to the Prince. I find this key drawing simply stunning.It shows that Milt was...
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Smee in Trouble
A photostat of actors as pirates, as they go through the motions of threatening Smee. As the sequence's story goes, they feel they are wasting their time near the island and would rather set sail to...
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Effects Animation
There are times when I want to make the switch from character to effects animation...at least for a little while. Effects animators are not concerned with the often intense analysis of character...
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