Behind the Action at Disney
The colors and detail in Snow White Disney's first full length animated feature are still enough to make me sing!
For any of you who missed my last post; Lisa Pressman asked me to write about my top ten influences. You can see the entire list at her blog, Lisa Pressman Art Blog. I like the exercise so much I decided to explore each one of them as a separate post.
Number one on my list is Walt Disney. Here’s what I wrote about him in Lisa’s blog:
1. Walt Disney- Love him or hate him, it’s hard to deny his influence on our culture today. Saturday matinees at the local theater in Grand Rapids allowed me my first glimpses into the world of art. While the action was playing out in the foreground, I would find myself entranced by the captivating world created by the studio’s background artists.
I imagine that for many children like myself growing up, animated films are their main exposure to visual art. Though I always loved to paint and draw and make things, I never set foot into a real art museum until I was in college.
Eyvind Earle spins Disney Magic in his backgrounds for Sleeping Beauty
I admit that I am one that enjoys Disney stuff. (We’re easy to spot: say the word “Disney” and you either get eyes as big as Bambi’s or a shutter.) We’ve taken our lucky children to Disney theme parks many times in their short lives.
But, as much as I like all the trimmings, by far the biggest influence on my art has been the amazing backgrounds in his early films. I learned a lot about painting by looking at these lush environments, things that I may have learned from from the masters in museums, but didn’t. Disney is accessible.
Disney’s talented team of background painters would set a stage where anything could happen. A world that invites you to come in and create your own story.
It’s not that Disney created a world of fantasy for me, but that he planted the seeds, that I could create that kind of place for myself.
Biotic Fizz � Nancy Tobin
(I was delighted to come across a blog by Rob Richards called Animation Backgrounds. Rob has an amazing collection of background art, from Snow White to Lilo and Stitch. It’s cool to be able to separate the action of the figures from these rich scenes.)
