Showing posts with label artist spotlight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artist spotlight. Show all posts
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Artist Spotlight - Mary Blair
I've always loved the look of Mary Blair's art. I was always drawn to her fearless color palette, especially with Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland concept art.
I admire Mary's example in the early years of animation, where the field was very much a boy's club. She paved the way and won the admiration and respect of Walt Disney himself.
Mary graduated from San Jose State College and won a scholarship to the renowned Chouinard Art Institute in LA. In 1934, she married another artist, Lee Everett Blair.
Mary and Lee both soon began to work in the animation industry, joining the Ub Iwerks studio. Lee went on to work at the Harman-Ising studios, before ultimately joining the Walt Disney studio, where he was joined by his wife in 1940. She worked on films such as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Song of the South, and Cinderella.
At the request of Walt Disney, who regarded highly her innate sense of color styling, Blair created a look for Disney's new attraction, "It's a Small World".
Dallas Clayton is a really fun guy. He's been hailed as the new Dr. Suess, though I would say that he's got a bit of Shel Silverstein going on as well. The thought provoking messages that often accompany his childlike art entertains both kids and adults. One of my favorite things about him is he'll read stories to kids in rather unconventional ways. Like through a megaphone in a library.
When I have kids, I will definitely buy Dallas Clayton books for them, and I imagine they will be our favorite bedtime books.
After the birth of his son Audio, Dallas was inspired to write, illustrate, and publish An Awesome Book!, a 64 page book focusing on the idea of “dreaming big.” After being turned down by several major publishing houses Clayton opted to self-publish An Awesome Book! by posting the book for free online and using mostly non-traditional means of distribution, after which the book became a commercial and critical success.
Clayton founded the non-profit Awesome World Foundation in 2009 with the intention of traveling the world, reading to kids, and promoting childhood literacy. The foundation has donated books worldwide and collaborated with numerous brands and charities to help support various children's causes.
Artist spotlight - Brittney Lee I can't remember how I happened upon her work, but her style is so cool. It's all retro and defined shapes and is something that I've always wanted to be able to pull off, but never could. The woman works wonders with paper. Some of her pieces are so creative and awesome! It makes me want to try my hand at paper and cut-outs.
"My name is Brittney Lee, and I grew up in a small town in Western Pennsylvania. My family lives on a lake, and my experiences and adventures there were probably the most influential parts of my childhood with respect to my artistic career. Outside, I had all of nature to observe and study and draw, while inside the house was filled with a century’s worth of artwork and design. As I got older, I took every art class that I could find. I actually worked with my high school teachers to create extra independent studies in art. After high school, I attended the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Film and Animation for my bachelor’s degree. There I became close with a very talented group of students, and met my advisor/mentor Nancy Beiman, who greatly influenced all of us who worked with her. When I paint digitally, I mainly work in Photoshop to color my artwork. I like to loosely lay down broad areas of color and then refine the shapes using the eraser tool. I didn’t study color in school, so I am constantly collecting references to gain a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t and why. I like to start my day with a coffee and some scribble drawings to get creative juices flowing. It is a technique I learned from workshop with Nate Wragg back in 2007, and it really encourages experimentation with different shapes and compositions. Staying physically active usually boosts my creative energy. Other than that, I try to surround myself with creative stimulus. I watch lots of films, listen to all kinds of music, see a lot of plays, and keep my work and living spaces filled with photographs, artwork, books, and other knick-knacks that inspire me. Having great friends to bounce ideas off of and to be inspired by always helps too!"
William Joyce is a cool dude. I remember reading A Day With Wilbur Robinson as a kid and now it's movie counterpart, Meet the Robinsons is really one of my favorite animated movies.
I think what I love most about William is that his style is so very distinct; so retro and whimsical, but somehow futuristic and otherworldly at once. Like an alternate universe.
He's dabbled in both children's books and movies/tv. Among his creations are George Shrinks, Rolie Polie Olie, and the Guardians of the Childhood series. Last year he won an Academy Award for his incredible co-directed short, The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore. It's so cute, I wanted to cry.
William Joyce was born in 1957 in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he lives today with his wife and two children. Much of his work is autobiographical. This self-avowed “first generation TV brat” grew up in a household of eccentrics. "With a household like that, writing and illustrating came easily to me,” he admits. He always loved to draw. His father said he was born with a pencil in his hand. The boy had a vivid imagination from the start and drew spaceships and ugly sisters and dinosaurs. He had wonderful art teachers who encouraged him to experiment in all sorts of media.
Joyce really wanted to do children’s books and already had a well-defined style of his own when he headed for college. Unfortunately, his teachers wanted him to paint another way so he dropped out of art school. Animation proved to be a great training ground for a picture book artist. The animator’s storyboard taught him how to tell a story visually. Even before he graduated, Joyce was already showing his work to publishers.
Joyce seems to master any medium he attempts. He may spend as much as two years on a project, drawing and redrawing and aiming for perfection. He does not hesitate to drop it if it does not click, if the work gets bogged down in “tedium, effort, and uncertainty.” And he will pick it up later if the mood strikes him.
His infectious enthusiasm affects everything he attempts. “I try to make television that actually stimulates that animation gland and drive [young viewers] almost into an imaginative conniption fit,” he explains. “I want them so jazzed after watching one of my shows that they can hardly stand it. That they have to go out and tell somebody or do something or reenact what they have seen by using imaginative play.”
Noelle is super cool. I found her on tumblr because of her Broship of the Rings comics - which are hilarious - and discovered her talent from there. She's currently working on a webcomic called Nimona, and that is great as well.
Maybe some people see her stuff and think, "so what, it's just a detailed doodle." But I really dig her style. And maybe that's just because I always feel like I'm struggling to find my own style, but hers is unique. She's my age I think, and I bet she'll have an awesome future ahead of her.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
I wanted to post a little on the artists that I really admire and inspire me, but before I knew it, the list was 20+ people long. So then I thought I would do a spotlight. I'll try to do it every thursday.
We're going to start out with Bill Peet, because besides Disney, he is the first artist I remember who stood out to me. I remember being in 5th grade and how I happened upon his autobiography in the school library. I sat there in the maze of books and read.
Bill Peet was born in Grandview, Indiana, on January 29,1915. Peet began drawing at an early age, and filled tablets full of sketches. Often, instead of doing lessons, Peet would draw in the margins of his textbooks—which were very popular for their added illustrations when he sold them back. Animals were always a love of Peet's. Most of his adventures as a boy to catch animals were in the hope that he could capture them and sketch them. The young Peet would also sneak onto greeting parties at the train station as a boy just to see the train's mechanical workings. In addition, as a teen, he would try to sketch the circus big top, but he was always in the way of the set up crew. (All of this reflects in his work! - L)
After a grueling hiring process, he was brought on to animate for Snow White. Within a few years, he became very close to Disney, though he found him a difficult man to work with at times. After his time at Disney studios, he went on to write and illustrate children's books. Much of the success Peet's stories have enjoyed is due to the memorable themes they contain: trying when there's not much obvious hope, not allowing taunting of others to prevent individual success, finding compromise in solutions and others.
