Buttermilk Skies

Adam and dog: by Minkyu Lee

2012-01-10T22:56:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year 2012! I know it's been quite a while since my last post. 2011 was a tough, busy year and it was quite a task to keep up with it all. I've heard many people relate similar stories and feelings about last year, so let's all hope that 2012 is a whole lot better.

One amazing project that I was fortunate enough to help out and work on a little bit during the past year was my friend Minkyu Lee's film "Adam and dog". A completely independent, hand drawn short film that I'm very happy to say has been nominated for the Best Animated Short Subject category in the 39th Annual Annie Awards.

Sketch of Adam by Minkyu Lee.

Still frame image of dog from the film.

Minkyu has recently put together a wonderful trailer for his film that has been making the rounds and gathering lots of buzz on the Internet that you can watch here:

Adam and dog Trailer from Minkyu on Vimeo.

He has also started a tumblr for the film where you can find out more information about it and get updates on future screenings here:

http://adamanddog.tumblr.com/

I hope that everyone gets a chance to see the film soon!

Milt Kahl: Crocky

2011-04-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Few people can draw cartoon animals quite as well as Milt Kahl. Here is a model sheet of Crocky from "Bedknobs & Broomsticks".

Chouinard Art Institute: Course Catalogs circa 1950

2011-02-01T19:57:00.000-08:00

Happy 2011 New Year! It's hard to believe it's been almost two years since I wrote a post here about Chuck Jones and Chouinard where I mentioned that my Great Uncle had attended the school in the early 1950s. I had hoped to share a lot more about that story here by now, but better late than never.

My Great Uncle Dan, one of my Grandmother's brothers on my Mother's side of the family, enrolled in Chouinard after serving in the military during World War II. I believe his focus at the school was on Advertising Design and he went on to have a successful career as an Art Director in the advertising field here in Los Angeles. As I mentioned in my earlier post though, by the time I realized I'd really like to ask him some questions about his career and his schooling at Chouinard it was too late.

After he passed away in 2005, I was fortunate that his immediate family allowed me to have a few of the art books and other items from his studio space that I found interesting. Amongst these things were a couple of the Chouinard Course Catalogs from the time my Great Uncle attended the school.

I have to admit that it was pretty exciting to find these in his studio. Not only was I struck by the beautiful image of the drummer on the '51-'52 brochure, but when I looked at the class schedules and the instructors I saw more than a few important names I recognized. Names of legendary artists like T.Hee, Bob Winquist, Bill Moore, Donald Graham, and Marc Davis.

So I've finally gotten around to scanning them and would like to share the catalogs here:

Hopefully these scans will be of interest to some people, as well as acting to preserve a small aspect of Southern California's notable history in the modern arts.

Disney Model Sheet: OWL

2010-11-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

I was about to write yet another post about an observational sketching book, but then I thought maybe I should post something fun and cartoony before the Thanksgiving Holiday. Well here it is, a model sheet of the Owl teacher from the Walt Disney shorts "Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom" and "Adventures in Music: Melody". Enjoy and have a great holiday!

E.H. Shepard: The Man Who Drew Pooh

2010-11-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

I briefly mentioned E.H. Shepard in a post I wrote about Hayao Miyazaki here in 2009. E.H. Shepard was an English artist and book illustrator who is probably best known for the illustrations he did for A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh" series of books, which were published in the late 1920's. Shepard's drawings are charming, delicate, and exhibit an incredible facility in draftsmanship.

I recently purchased a book about him called "E.H. Shepard, The Man Who Drew Pooh" by Arthur R. Chandler. I haven't had the chance to read much of the book yet, but the text seems to be mostly focused on cataloguing the chronological events of E.H. Shepard's life and career. There might be a few gems of artistic knowledge or insightful quotes by Mr. Shepard in the book, but I haven't found them yet. However, one thing is for sure, the book is filled with quite a bit of his drawings which are definitely worth seeing for anyone who likes Shepard's work. I scanned in a few drawings from the book and would like to share them here.

This first drawing is titled Man with wheelbarrow, a pencil sketch done in 1924. It's a fantastic drawing, no analyzation needed really. It's well observed and beautifully drawn.

I apologize if the recent theme of my posts have been too centered around observational sketching/Life Drawing, which can seem like a boring subject, but it's a subject that I've been inspired by this year and I think it's something that we all could do a bit more of. Observation helps to inform our work and hopefully keeps us from being formulaic.

This next illustration is a Christmas card that Shepard made in 1943. There's a lot of great things going on in this illustration. The design and use of black space versus empty white space, and the patterns and textures he has used to create the "grey" areas, but I especially love the figure of the soldier holding the gun on Santa. It's a tremendous drawing.

Next I scanned a couple of rough sketches that Shepard did for The Secret Garden. It's nice to see some more pencil drawings, as opposed to the more common ink drawings, from him and to get an insight into his illustration process. The figures are beautiful, but I also admire how he indicated the backgrounds. There's a nice tree/grass vignette behind the girl in the first image, as well as another wonderfully rough and simple indication of the door and long gallery stretching beyond her in the second image.

Last but not least, here's a couple more charming observational drawings that Shepard sketched of a woman on a train. Again in pencil.

There's a lot more drawings than these in the book, but I wanted to present a few here that I thought were especially nice. I'll try to do another post later on Shepard and a few of his children's book illustrations from some of the less well known titles.

Maybe I have mentioned this before, but hopefully you might have noticed that I've been presenting the artwork on these posts in the 8 1/2" x 11" format where possible. So if you find something inspiring you can easily print it out. I am a little less busy at work now, so I expect I can do a few more posts on some other interesting books that I've picked up recently before the end of the year. Stay tuned.

Robert Fawcett : Drawing the Nude 2

2010-10-27T18:59:00.001-07:00

A few more quotes and images from the book "Drawing the Nude - The Figure Drawing Techniques of Noted American Illustrator Robert Fawcett" by Howard Munce.

"Memory drawing is a valid method, although I will neither advocate it nor analyze it in these pages. The danger of drawing by memory is that it can and does produce images which become a formula. Instead, I want you to concern yourself with looking carefully, and recording what you see at the moment."--Robert Fawcett

"The person who sits for your drawing can have any possible ethnic background, and this must be conveyed. It should be within your ability to record and convey personal physical characteristics to others. A model may be shy or brash, vain or modest, cooperative or lazy. Even these qualities are within your province, if you have taught yourself to observe and record."--Robert Fawcett

"We must also take it for granted that there are many approaches to the teaching of figure drawing--as many as there are artists with opinions on the subject. No single point of view can possibly be the last word."--Robert Fawcett

Robert Fawcett : Drawing the Nude

2010-08-16T22:41:00.000-07:00

The following quotes and images are from the book "Drawing the Nude - The Figure Drawing Techniques of Noted American Illustrator Robert Fawcett" by Howard Munce.

"With practice, one comes to recognize what one is looking at as either primarily linear or tonal, and one comes also to know whether its structural characteristics are predominantly angular or rhythmic. It is upon this one bases the statement, for that is what a drawing is - a simple, pictorial statement." --Robert Fawcett

"Bob Fawcett always simplified form in his drawings. He once said, "Economy in drawing is essentially the shorthand which develops in the excitement of the fleeting moment. It is the thing seen subjected to editorial exclusion." However, he tried to avoid slipping into superficiality: "One's study can be admired for it's beautiful line, but if that line is not expressing an understanding of the form itself it remains mildly interesting, but empty of content.""

" I am convinced that divisions of subject matter in drawing are arbitrary. Although largely devoted to the figure, my work has included subjects ranging from figures to still lifes to landscapes. Drawing is drawing. There is no such thing as figure drawing, per se. In writing this book, I seem to be engaged in a project which threatens to contradict that belief. Actually it will not. Although I am concerning myself here with the human figure, life drawing alone, in the background there remains my belief that an apple and a flower are equally difficult to draw, and a deer, perhaps only more difficult." --Robert Fawcett

Murakami Yutaka & Yoichi Kotabe

2010-05-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

On my last trip to Japan in 2010 I bought quite a few books. Here's a couple images from them. These are only two of the many artists I've found to be interesting and inspirational from Japan. Murakami Yutaka works in the field of illustration and Yoichi Kotabe worked in animation.

Murakami Yutaka

Yoichi Kotabe

I really like the simplicity, as well as the rough and organic quality in both of these artist's work. Hopefully I can get to posting more here about these particular artists as well as some of the other interesting artists and books I found in Japan as time goes on.

Peter Pan Model Sheet: Mike

2010-03-09T22:05:00.001-08:00

Here's another model sheet I like from Walt Disney's Peter Pan. Some people might say he's just the typically cute and generic Disney kid, but I think there's a lot of great things going on in these drawings. The simplified indications of his body poses are very appealing to me. Especially when it comes to the shapes of his hands, legs, feet, and the way drapery of his pajamas is handled. There's a lot of nice contrasts between straights and curves, as well as the simple sides of the shapes versus the more interesting and complex sides of the shapes. It's interesting how the drapery of his pajamas tends to play a big part in many of these nice contrasts.

The drawings of Wendy here are beautiful as well. Unfortunately I'm not sure which artist at the studio drew these, but I think they're worth taking a closer look at.

On a side note, but an important note nonetheless, fellow DreamWorks story artist Louie Del Carmen has recently written a great post about composition on the Art Center Blog.

Here's the link:

http://theartcenter.blogspot.com/2010/03/louie-del-carmen-rhythm-and-spacing.html

2 Websites

2010-01-26T18:54:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been quite a while since my last update, but I still have a lot more things that I'd like to share. It's just a matter of finding the time and making the effort to do it. Time management has never been one of my strong suits unfortunately.

I'm not going to make any excuses or promises that I can't keep this year though. Actions speak louder than words. All I can say is that I don't plan on abandoning this site any time soon. Subscribing to this blog will probably be your best bet to know when it's updated though.

I'd like to start off 2010 by sharing a couple websites that I've found to be pretty useful and interesting.

The first site is http://books.google.com/. I realize that I've probably arrived late to the party on finding out about this one, but I thought that it's definitely a place on the internet that's worth taking note of as a research tool. Especially since I recently found a full version of the book Composition by Arthur Wesley Dow available for download on the site.

I haven't given up on my research into the design program at Chouinard, and this author was one of the people that was mentioned in the book Chouinard: An Art Vision Betrayed, as having had a big influence on some of the design instruction and people at the school.

The second site I'd like to mention is http://howtotrainyourdragon.tumblr.com/.

DreamWorks has put together a great site with some nice interviews of quite a few artists who worked on "How to Train Your Dragon". I don't know how many people know about this site yet, but it's really cool. I found the interviews with Production Designer Kathy Altieri, and the film's Head of Story, Alessandro Carloni (who I was lucky enough to work with on the movie), particularly inspiring.

Milt Kahl: Hands

2009-11-05T18:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a model sheet of hands drawn by the legendary Disney animator Milt Kahl. These have a dynamic combination of anatomical knowledge fused with great graphic appeal and shape.

Ernest Watson: Drawing Trees

2009-10-30T00:02:00.000-07:00

After my Great Uncle passed away in 2005, his immediate family allowed to me to have some of the books and magazines that were in his studio workspace. Some of the more interesting things I was able to get were a few issues of The Journal of Commercial Art and American Artist from the late 1950s.

Here is an article Ernest Watson wrote for American Artist - Special Summer Issue - June - July - August 1956. It covers a few topics on pencil sketching, but I edited it down specifically to what he wrote about drawing trees.

Chapter 8: Drawing

2009-10-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

"Drawing is the language that enables the men of the Ice Age, in the caves at Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France, to speak to us, today, and to the men of the hundreth century, with perfect clarity. Drawing is the universal language. Draughstmen communicate instantly and effectively with anyone, anywhere in any time."

An inspiring quote from the book "Complete Guide to Watercolor Painting" by Edgar A. Whitney. I'll definitely post more about this great book in the future. The images are from the Lascaux caves in France.

Original Tinkerbell Model Sheet

2009-10-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the lack of recent updates. I've been pretty busy at work as well as in my personal life.

Here is one of the original model sheets for Tinkerbell in Walt Disney's Peter Pan. I'm pretty sure it was drawn by Marc Davis. I don't think Milt Kahl did a pass on this character (ala Bambi or Alice), it's 100% Mr. Davis as far as I know.

When I say "original" I mean that it's her original character design. The Disney company has done many variations on her character design over the years due to her popularity. Some are good and some aren't so good, but none of them really come close to the appeal of Marc Davis' original design in my opinion.

I know that we've seen these all before, but I think they're exquisitely beautiful drawings and definitely worth taking another look at. The appeal and design of a pose is so important in animation and these poses are wonderful. I hope to do a post elaborating more about the design of a pose some time here in the future.

Even though these aren't extremely cartoony or pushed, I think there's some really fun stuff happening with her proportions here too. Her small hands, larger head, tiny feet and wider hips really play off each other and contrast in an interesting and appealing way. I also think Marc Davis' knowledge of the human figure really shines through in these designs as well.

I wish I had a better copy of it, but this will have to do for now. Hopefully I can do another update here sooner rather than later.

Hill Farm

2009-09-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

Here's another animated short that I really enjoyed seeing at animation festivals while I was younger.

It's a film called "Hill Farm" by Mark Baker.

It's fairly long for a short film, running at approximately 15 minutes, but if you have some time to spare I think it's really worth watching. The animation in this film is fun, caricatured, and beautifully done. I also love the fact that there's not a word of dialogue in the short, only the sounds of the animals, props, environment and the music.

Thanks to Minkyu Lee for sharing the link with me.

Richard Condie

2009-08-25T03:35:00.000-07:00

I really love these Richard Condie films. Seeing his work at animation festivals while I was growing up was a big inspiration for me.

This first film, "Getting Started", was funny to me when I was younger mostly because of all the crazy physical gags that happen in it. Now that I'm older though, I can really relate to the main character's battle with procrastination, and it's even funnier.

The second film, "The Big Snit", is also another favorite of mine.

Hayao Miyazaki: Starting Point

2009-08-09T15:45:00.001-07:00

I just bought Hayao Miyazaki's book "Starting Point" from the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Little Tokyo, here in Los Angeles. It's the English translation of a book containing articles which Miyazaki wrote for various publications, transcriptions of his spoken lectures, as well as some interviews with him where he shares his thoughts on Animation, Filmmaking, Current Social Issues, and more. Here's a picture of the original book that was published in Japan along with a photo of Miyazaki himself:

It's a tremendous opportunity to be able to finally read the thoughts and philosophies of a modern day master in English. Kudos to Viz Media for translating and publishing it. 'Nuff said.

Christophe Blain and a few other things...

2009-08-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

I was initially introduced to the fantastic comic book work of Christophe Blain by my fellow artists on the "Up" story team a couple years ago. Since then I've purchased pretty much every comic that he's done which has been translated from French into English.

A few months ago though, I was chatting with Louie Del Carmen about Mr. Blain's work and he brought in a couple books that Blain had done which I had never seen or heard of before. I was blown away.

"Carnet de Lettonie" and "Carnet Polaire".

"Carnet de Lettonie" is my favorite of the two. Here is the cover and a few images from inside:

The book is basically a collection of Blain's amazing sketchbook/reportage drawings. Unfortunately, since I can't read French, I don't really know what the theme of the book is. The drawings in the book are exquisite however, and there's quite a lot to see on every page too since the book is mostly artwork, not text. Blain's command of light and dark values, as well as his use of pattern and texture, especially in his landscapes is incredible. He also changes what media he uses a lot from sketch to sketch-- using a brush with ink, pencil, fountain pen, watercolor, sometimes even some crayons. I've been trying to do more observation sketching myself lately, so this book has been a great inspiration for that.

The other book,"Carnet Polaire" is very similar to "Carnet de Lettonie". But there's a lot more text in french, which I can't read, and it seems to be exclusively focused on a trip that Blain took to the south pole. Here is the cover and a few images from "Carnet Polaire":

This book is awesome too. What I like the most about Blain in these books, beyond his ability as a draftsman and painter, is that he's always experimenting and doing something different. He approaches things in so many different ways, with so many different types of media. He never seems to get stuck in a formula or a rut. His work is always fresh and always different from one page to the next. His ability to capture things he has observed is organic, lively, and honest.

These two books are available to purchase at Stuart Ng Books, or Amazon.fr for those who can read french well enough to order them.

The next recommendation I have is for a DVD I purchased a while ago, and finally got around to watching recently. The DVD is called "The Cutting Edge - The Magic of Movie Editing".

This documentary is basically a series of interviews with Film Editors and Directors, covering the history of editing as well as it's vital role in making a film. It's not perfect, but I think there's enough interesting information in it to give it a recommendation. Watching Walter Murch cut together a sequence for the film "Cold Mountain" was the highlight of the documentary for me.

Finally, I wanted to mention an artist's website that I was introduced to recently-- Rodolfo Damaggio. A live action film storyboard artist. Click on his name above to visit the site.

Although I'm personally more inspired by his drawings than his paintings, there's no doubt that he's a phenomenal artist. There's a lot of great work on his site that is worth checking out, especially in the Storyboards section.

Some Great Interviews

2009-07-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

A friend introduced me this website recently: http://animated-views.com/
It has quite a few interesting interviews with some of the best artists working in the field of animation today, as well as with a few legends from the past.

Clicking on their names here will link to the interviews.

Alice Davis talks about her husband Marc Davis' work.

Burny Mattison also talks about Marc Davis' work.

Joe Moshier talks about his work at Disney and his move to DreamWorks.

James Baxter talks about working on "Enchanted".

Pete Docter talks about "Up".

Jan Pinkava talks about his history of working at Pixar on "Geri's Game" and "Ratatouille", as well as his future.

Enrico Casarosa talks about storyboarding on "Up", "Ratatouille", and his personal comic work.
Part 1
Part 2

Henry Selick talks about Joe Ranft, "Moongirl", and "Coraline".

There's a lot more on the website. Please check it out.

The Fine Art of Marc Davis

2009-07-20T18:10:00.000-07:00

One of the nice things about living in Los Angeles is that there always seems to be something interesting going on, especially events which relate to Hollywood's rich history of cinema and animation. Recently there was an exhibit of the legendary Disney animation artist Marc Davis' Fine Art work at the Forest Lawn Museum in Glendale. It was amazing and very inspiring. I went there twice to see it.

I was fortunate to get one of the last few brochures that commemorated the exhibit. The cover is posted above. Inside the brochure there are quite a few gorgeous reproductions of some of his paintings in the show. Here are a few of my favorites.

I fell in love with this Harlequin piece above at the gallery. It was awesome to see it in person.

Unfortunately the brochure doesn't feature everything that was in the exhibit. It only has about 25%-30% of what was actually on display. There were sculptures, sketches, and some wonderful abstract compositional studies-- a very large and diverse variety of his work was presented at the show.

I asked a friend to take some pictures for me with his iphone, since I don't own a digital camera yet. I was particularly inspired by Mr. Davis' Life Drawings and Paintings. There was an amazing variety and sensitivity to his work, but most importantly it was clearly evident that he really enjoyed making them. Here are some photos of a few, unfortunately there's some glare, but I still think they are worth seeing.

The paintings on the bottom here are super loose and spontaneous. Very cool to see. He probably did a few of these from a live model at Chouinard, the art school where he taught. It was clear to me from the exhibit that Marc Davis loved being an artist, and that he really took his time to explore creating very personal artwork outside of the studio. Hopefully seeing his work here can inspire more of us to do the same.

(Update: I guess the Marc Davis show is still up through July 26, 2009. For some reason I thought it is was over when I wrote this. I highly recommend going to see it if you are in the L.A. area. I'm going to try and make it over to see it again myself. One of my fellow co-workers at DreamWorks, Jason Scheier, also made a post about the show on his blog. Here is the link: http://d3capmode.blogspot.com/2009/07/art-of-marc-davis.html)

House of Cats

2009-07-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

Many of my fellow graduates and friends from CalArts worked on this. It turned out really well. Congratulations to everyone involved.

I remember when my friend Sean Jimenez told me that Court Lomax had invited him to go to Austria and France for a few months to help develop a commercial for Swarovski, I thought it sounded like an awesome opportunity and would be a great experience. When Sean came back and showed me some of the story boards and animatics he had done with the ideas that he and Court had come up with for it, I was really impressed. They were for the first cat Emily.

House of Cats from Courtland Lomax on Vimeo.

Credits:

Co-Created by Courtland Lomax and Sean Jimenez
Directed by Courtland Lomax
Music by Brian Young
Compositing by Ethan Metzger
Backgrounds and Designs by Brigette Barrager
Storyboards and Layouts by Sean Jimenez

Animation:
Adam Muto
Jules Soto
Shiyoon Kim
Bert Youn
Matthias Bauer
Erik Fountain
Courtland Lomax
Leo Matsuda
Matt Pugnetti
Jennifer Hager
David Nam

Cleanup:
Sean Jimenez
Esther Shin
Jinyoung Park
Juliana Park
Kelli Kuest
Matt Pugnetti

I attached links to everyone's name that I could. Please check them out.

Hayao Miyazaki: Going Rough

2009-07-08T19:47:00.001-07:00

If you haven't bought the book "The Art of Kiki's Delivery Service: A Film by Hayao Miyazaki" yet, please do yourself a favor and buy it. It is my absolute favorite "Art of..." book that has been published out of all the books released for Miyazaki's films. The drawings in this book are phenomenal. All the drawings that I've posted here so far are from it.

I wrote about going rough before in a post about Chuck Jones last month, but I'd like to revisit the subject again here with Miyazaki. Especially since I just recently finished a post about Life Drawing.

Most of these drawings were studies done for the characters in the film "Kiki's Delivery Service", but some of them almost look like observational sketches. Very much like the kind of drawing an artist would do if they were out at a coffee shop or at a park, observing and sketching people. Even if these sketches weren't done from life, I personally find them particularly inspirational for that kind of drawing. Miyazaki certainly seems to be channeling things he has observed from life in these drawings for sure.

I apologize for the graininess of some of these images. Alot of these drawings were very small in the book, so I blew them up quite a bit in order to feature them better.

It's amazing how rough these are, but how well they read. Miyazaki's shapes are so descriptive and his attention to the character's emotion and pose is pretty much unmatched these days.

It's incredible how Miyazaki can indicate a leg, or a dress, with just one or two simple lines and create a beautiful shape in some of these drawings, but there are also others here that are very rough and indicated in a looser, less perfect way. I hope that these drawings can all be yet another reminder that it's okay to go rough. It's not all about the fancy draftsmanship or cool stylization, it's about the idea and the character. The poses in these drawings feel real, and the character is alive.

Some of these charming, childlike poses Miyazaki drew in his explorations of the girl I posted here, are somewhat of reminiscent of the work of E.H. Shepard:

Well, I hope that everyone finds these drawings as unique and inspiring as I have. I will definitely be doing more posts about Miyazaki in the future.

Coming Soon: Hayao Miyazaki

2009-07-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

Image from "The Art of Kiki's Delivery Service: A Film by Hayao Miyazaki".

Tinkerbell: Peter Pan Peanut Butter Model Suggestions

2009-06-30T21:40:00.001-07:00

Back in the good old days, even when they redesigned her for Peanut Butter commercials, the Disney artists kept Tinkerbell looking appealing.

Life Drawing: Reaching for Inspiration Outside of the Classroom

2009-06-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Study by John Singer Sargent

Actually I'm not quite done pontificating yet, but this time I have some artwork to go along with it. I mentioned earlier that I wanted to do a post about Life Drawing, so here's my first attempt at it. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible, even though there is quite a bit to say on the subject.

I'd first like to preface this whole post by pointing out that I do not consider myself to be a master of Life Drawing by any means. I think that the Life Drawing I've posted on my personal art blog illustrates that I still have a lot to learn about it, as well as practice. I also have no problem admitting that I have some confused and conflicting opinions on the subject too.

I've taken quite a few Life Drawing classes from many and various professional instructors throughout my life, and I consider most of it to be time well spent and a great series of learning experiences. I would not be where I am today without them. I think it can actually be a very valuable thing to take an experienced Life Drawing instructor, especially as a beginner, because they can offer you an approach/method to solving the problem of drawing from the live model, which can be extremely difficult when you are first starting out. So I hope that I have made my feelings on all this very clear before I continue, as I will be critiquing some of what I consider to be the more problematic aspects of Life Drawing Instruction and the environnment that can develop in the classroom.

The main problem I've often found with many Life Drawing Instructors is that most of them consider their own personal style of Life Drawing to be the only way to do it. Alot of these teachers will only be happy with their students if they end up drawing exactly like themselves. So thus begins the quest of the young student to practice earnestly in order to draw exactly like their teacher. At least this is the experience that I've often had and witnessed, maybe it hasn't happened to other people, but it got to the point for me where I actually got derailed from why I was doing Life Drawing in the first place, which was to study how to draw the figure better so that I could tell stories visually and animate characters, not to copy someone's figure drawing style. This is why I found the passage that Chuck Jones wrote about his Life Drawing instructor, Donald Graham, so interesting. He said that Graham did not impose a personal style of drawing on his students, and as Jones says that's a very rare thing.

Many Life Drawing instructors seem to see Life Drawing as a means unto itself, rather than a means to an end. In other words, the pure act of simply achieving a "good" figure drawing is the entire goal. The Instructors will often get the students hooked on solely trying to get a "good" figure drawing, according to the parameters of the style that they are teaching, and convince them that once they accomplish getting that "good" figure drawing, that the students will then be able to animate, storyboard, design characters, or illustrate a scene with ease. But in my opinion, it takes a lot more than just studying a style of Life Drawing to be able to do any of these things really well. Some people who haven't even studied Life Drawing all that much, sometimes actually do these things better than some people that have mastered it. Now, I don't mean to imply that studying Life Drawing isn't important or beneficial, but there's a lot more to do than just drawing the 1-30 minute poses of the model in the classroom.

Another interesting thing that can often happen within the Life Drawing class is that a stock style pervades and is sometimes encouraged, where many students begin to draw in a similar way to each other, imitating themselves as well as the instructor. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, and oftentimes it is actually a great/natural way to learn as well as to produce some beautiful results. The problem, however, becomes that the students and the instructors are now only looking at themselves in the classroom as a place for inspiration when there is an entire world of art created during the span of human history to become interested in and learn from. I've also noticed that this narrowed perspective on figure drawing, which tends to develop in the classroom, seems to neglect other important aspects of picture making and the basic design principles of art. Things like directing the viewer's eye on where to look in an image or clearly presenting a narrative idea with a specific character in an emotional state.

I realize this is getting to be very long, but please bear with me.

I put the following drawings together of some professional Life Drawing instructors, labeled with numbers, to discuss some of these concepts here:

I don't think many people can deny the high quality of draftsmanship in these drawings that comes from the hundreds of thousands of hours of experience in drawing from the live model. That's not the issue here, but since I've been in more than my fair share of Life Drawing classes where the teacher has vigorously critiqued some artist, artwork, or art school (and that's putting it mildly), I figure that it's okay, for the sake of discussion, to share some thoughts and maybe even some respectful critiques on these drawings as well.

I'll start with drawing number 6.

Here we see a drawing of a female figure, I'm assuming because of the body type with the larger hips, from a back view, seated on a pillow which is probably on a stool. Now where does your eye go to in this drawing? Mine tends to go towards her bottom pressed against the pillow and to her upper leg/thigh. I think that's mostly because that area is where the most interest, definition, and contrast is in the drawing. The teacher's concern and effort seems to be mostly centered on the forms and flesh of her bottom and the anatomy of her upper leg, even though there is a pretty nice overall flow to the sketch. Maybe that form is what the teacher was lecturing on at the time it was drawn, and even if it's not, it's still a fine approach and a deftly executed drawing. The teacher is obviously illustrating what they are good at teaching, which is anatomy and form. There was probably not enough time to finish off the other parts of the figure either, but this is a drawing that the teacher chose as an example to represent their artwork and instruction, so I think it's fair to offer some thoughts on it.

I think one problem with this drawing, even though it's very well done, is that the overall design is not completely clear, and the heightened concern for anatomy has overtaken the idea of the figure's pose. This a problem I often see in Life Drawing classes. Design principles are not emphasized as much as anatomy is. Drawing number 4 has somewhat of the same problem for me. Even though the overall pose of the figure is a clearer statement, the anatomical rendering is calling more attention to itself than the idea of the overall pose. My eye seems to get hung up in all the anatomical details of the figure, rather than seeing the whole pose. Drawing number 7, while amazing in it's delineation of anatomy, has this issue as well. Especially if you squint your eyes at it, which is sometimes a good way to tell if a drawing is "reading" clearly or not.

Drawings 8 and 9 are obviously showing a method of constructing the figure with simple forms which is great, but I'm also wondering--shouldn't we be able to tell the pose and attitude of the figure clearly from these? I think they both show it to a degree, but number 8 feels a bit strange to me. It's hard to tell what's happening with the feet and what the arm on the left is doing. The absence of the indication of the neck is also confusing the clarity of the drawing a bit too. Number 9, although very solid in the construction of forms--the overall pose is a bit stiff and feels somewhat forced.

Oftentimes Life Drawing Instructors will be looked upon as the ultimate authority on the subject, especially within the microcosm of the classroom. We should definitely learn what we can from them and appreciate that they've taken the time to teach students, but on the other hand we also shouldn't forget the world of art that has come before both us and them. For example I chose a few Life Drawings from John Singer Sargent here:

These are all possibilities of what Life Drawing can be beyond the classroom, and a bar that has been set to reach and hopefully surpass. Maybe you'd like to ignore them completely and do something different, that's fine too. I personally think these are amazing drawings. I also think they show an overall concern and knowledge of good design, storytelling, and character that is lacking in some of the more anatomy based Life Drawing in the modern era.

Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but look at drawings 14, 15, 17, and 18 by Sargent compared to drawings 4, 7, 10, and 11 by the instructors. In Sargent's work there is a definite knowledge of anatomy, but it's subdued to the overall form of the figure and the big impact of the picture. Even in Sargent's quicker and looser sketches, like numbers 12 and 13, you really get a sense of the person and that he's drawing. In 19 the man feels like a living breathing character with an attitude. It's almost as if Sargent is studying the man as a person rather than as a nude figure. In 18 you can feel the power and the weight of the two figures locked together, as well as the emotional statement of it, without a great amount of rendering. The anatomy does not distract the viewer from the idea of the image, and it's arguably more appealing to abstain from drawing every little bump and anatomical detail. I think Sargent is also just as a concerned with the overall design of these drawings as he is with the figures, if you notice how he organizes his values and shapes of light and dark. Also take a moment to compare Sargent's studies of anatomy in drawing 16 compared with the teacher's studies in drawing 5.

I once took an instructor who said, "Sargent can't draw, but he can paint." I couldn't disagree more. Sargent's drawings are the foundation of his painting. Just because Sargent didn't approach his Life Drawing in the same way that teacher did, even he was considered "the wrong approach" in the narrow focus of the Life Drawing classroom. The student can just as easily spend their time studying and emulating Sargent as they can emulating their teacher, if they choose to do so.

A couple more examples of what Life Drawing can be, by one of my favorite artists, Gustav Klimt:

Once again, I think these drawings are amazing, and even though they are a bit unresolved, my eye is still lead to look exactly where it's supposed to be. The patterns of light and dark, as well as the degree of finish on certain parts of the drawing become accents that draw attention to the important areas and strengthen the image's idea. Many of these drawings by both Sargent and Klimt are most likely studies done for larger paintings. They are studies to figure something out or to solve a problem for a bigger concept. In other words, they are a means to end, not a means unto themselves. Even though many of them do stand alone as great pieces of work. Again, there is a quality and knowledge of the fundamentals of design here that you really don't see that much of anymore. Klimt knows what's important, where to spend his time, what to emphasize, and what to leave out. He also has great shapes.

Here's a couple more artists, Ben Shahn and Valentin Serov:

I put these two artists together to show the range that is possible in drawing. I don't know if these Ben Shahn drawings are necessarily Life Drawings, but I felt that they had a great sense of character to them, and they are obviously based on specific people or a situation. They are definitely observed in some sense. It's good to exaggerate/caricature, and the kind of drawing that Shahn does isn't easy to do, try it sometime. Shahn's approach is just as legitimate and awesome as any other great drawing in my opinion.

Serov, on the other hand, has a Sargent kind of quality to his work, but it's more delicate. Again, I think the overall design here is fantastic. Especially in drawing 27 where all the contrast and texture in her hair leads your eye right to her face. Then there's just enough going on with her back and arm to keep it interesting and clear. The use of line quality to indicate the clothing versus her flesh is also amazingly done. There are definitely areas in the drawing that are emphasized and subdued according to the principles of good design. I'd recommend reading "The Practice and Science of Drawing" by Harold Speed, if you'd like to know about how much artists really thought about design and picture making in the past.

Finally, Ramon Casas, a Spanish artist that I discovered quite a while ago:

These move beyond the realm of drawing, and a bit into painting. I wanted to show again though, what's possible in the realm of Life Drawing and studying from the model. Drawing number 30 is something you might attempt in costumed figure session if you wanted to. A great sense of design is also apparent throughout Casas' work as well.

I apologize for the length of this. I hope it all makes some kind of sense. My point is that we should never stop thinking for ourselves. There is no single "right way" to do Life Drawing, and there's a lot more to learn than just anatomy. I hope that I've kind of illustrated that a bit here.

Why not set our sights to the highest levels of art instead of keeping them locked down in the modern day Life Drawing classroom?

There's also nothing wrong with bringing in a copy of a piece of artwork you are particularly inspired by to reference in a Life Drawing class/workshop or bringing it with you to reportage/location sketching as well. It's good to have a goal, and to know what you are aiming for sometimes. Other times, ignoring outside influences and doing some random experimentation can produce some great things too.

I'd like to end with a quote from a great Life Drawing instructor I had, who actually taught a very structured and methodical approach to drawing. One time I asked him while trying to draw something from the model, "Is this okay? What's the correct way to do this?", surprisingly enough he simply said:

"If it looks good, you did it right."

Update: Internet Explorer

2009-06-17T19:10:00.000-07:00

I noticed that this blog doesn't display correctly when using Internet Explorer as a web browser. I don't know if it is the template that I'm using or some bad html code, that I had in an earlier post, which I couldn't seem to get rid of.

Everything here seems to display correctly in Firefox though, so I would recommend using that when viewing the blog.

Update: I think I fixed the bad html code that was causing the problem, but I still recommend using Firefox.

CalArts Part 2: Teachers and Trusting Yourself

2009-06-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know who I'm really writing this for exactly. I guess it would be for art students.
But it's something I feel like I need to talk about because of some of the discussion that's been going on lately.

I had some great teachers and some not-so-great teachers at school. There were also some teachers that I didn't take advantage of enough, because I didn't know what questions to ask them yet. Some teachers that a lot of people loved and thought were awesome, I personally didn't get as much out of, go figure. The following is a continuation of that unpublished post I wrote a while back, and it is about teachers:

A teacher can only take you so far, and some will be better than others. A teacher can share their knowledge and what they think is important, as well as give out assignments they believe will help their students to learn and improve, but the responsibility mostly lies upon the student as an artist to do the work, run into problems, critically self-evaluate it, and then come back with questions to the teacher. The student must also make the effort to find their own answers elsewhere through research and study outside of the classroom to supplement their education.

Why wouldn't you be researching things if you are truly interested in the subject?
I think this is an important question.

I had an instance at school where I asked a teacher a question about the movement of the character’s head in a walk cycle that I was really struggling to animate. The advice that teacher gave me directly contradicted information that I looked up later in the Richard Williams book. At that point it was up to me to decide what to do, who to trust, and figure out what appealed to me. I went with what the Williams book said, because I decided that I’d rather take the advice from an author who had worked with Ken Harris and learned from Milt Kahl, over a teacher that hadn’t. There was also another route I could have taken as well, which would have been to actually frame through some animation to figure it out, or better yet, frame through some live-action reference. The point being that I had many other ways to figure it out and learn beyond the teacher’s advice in the classroom.

Sometimes what a teacher likes might not be in line with what you like, and then there's no right or wrong answer. It's completely subjective at that point, and you have to be brave enough to make your own choice, trust yourself, and choose your own direction. Some teachers might even try to dominate you or make you dependent on them. They might try to scare you into thinking you will never be as good as them or that you will always make a bad decision without their help, putting you in constant doubt of yourself and what you like as an artist. At which point they often become more of a hindrance than a help, because you are not thinking for yourself anymore.

As I stated earlier, I had some issues with my education at school for sure, especially the Basic Design instruction. That's one reason why I've gone so much into researching Chouinard, Donald Graham, and other things that I've talked about here. But as frustrated as I got at school sometimes, I never stopped reading, watching lectures, and trying to figure things out on my own or with friends. Some people are so naturally talented that they didn't have to do things like that, but I had to work at it and research things. Still do.

Okay, I'm done pontificating for now. I'll post more artwork next.

CalArts Part 1: Schools have Libraries for a Reason

2009-06-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

So there's been a lot of discussion on various websites recently about the pros and cons of going to the Character Animation program I attended at CalArts. For some reason there's always some big controversy going on with it.

I have to say that I'm glad I went there for the most part, especially at the age that I did. I started my first year when I was 25 years old, so I knew how seriously I wanted to take the school and what I really wanted to get out of it. I also really appreciated the opportunity that I had in those 4 years to really try to learn and grow. It was great to be able to pretty much completely focus on what I wanted to do creatively, and have the uninterrupted time and facilities to do it as well. I worked really hard during my time there, and I'd like to think it was as hard as I could have. I have some regrets on some choices I made there, just like a lot of students probably do, but after all is said and done I think that I grew and improved a lot. Most importantly, I was able to do what I wanted to do--even to my own detriment.

I originally wrote some of the following as a response to a discussion on a website, but decided not to post it there. Mostly because I thought it would fall on deaf ears and the discussion got too negative, to the point of being non-constructive. Some people on my personal art blog expressed some interest in some of my book recommendations though, and since that was the main thrust of my post I'm going to share it here:

The following questions are for the students of Cal Arts; past, present, and future:

Have you read, and please ask yourself if you really understand the information in, the following books?

"The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams
"The Illusion of Life" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston
"Composing Pictures" by Donald Graham
"The Human Figure" by J. Vanderpoel
"Human Anatomy for the Artist" by John Raynes
"On the Art of Drawing" by Robert Fawcett
"Composition of Outdoor Painting" by Edgar Payne
"Cartoon Animation" by Preston Blair
"Timing for Animation" by Whitaker and Halas
"The Visual Story" by Bruce Block
"Dream Worlds" by Hans Bacher
"The Practice and Science of Drawing" by Harold Speed
"Forty Illustrators and How They Work" by Ernest Watson
"The Merchant of Dennis the Menace" by Hank Ketcham
"Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative" by Will Eisner
"How to Create Animation" by Cawley and Korkis
"Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life" by George Bridgman
"How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" by Stan Lee and John Buscema
"A Complete Guide to Drawing, Illustration, Cartooning, and Painting" by Gene Byrnes

These are just a few of the books that I could think of off the top of my head that I've found it helpful to sit down and read.There are hundreds of other books I could mention, that have a wealth of great information about film making/animation, or that have great drawings/paintings in them, and contain very clearly, detailed information in the text about the thinking, philosophy, study, and required abilities that went into creating them. Many of these books essentially explain HOW it's done, what the artist was thinking, or what influenced the creation of the art itself.

Now I don't claim to have read all of these books, or to completely understand them all, but many of them are on my book shelf, and I've at least read parts of them and have drawn/studied from quite a few of them. Most of these books are also available to read at the CalArts Library, and I read quite a few of them there while I attended the school. Some of them I read more than once, in order to try and fully comprehend the information.

Some of the aforementioned books are also available online as .pdfs now, for those who really wish to read something that these great artists felt was importantenough to write about. For example I just recently found "The Eye of the Painter and the Elements of Beauty” by Andrew Loomis through a Google search which lead to a .pdf of the entire book posted on a concept art forum. Just type in the book title and author into Google along with the word ".pdf " and you are sure to find some, and if you can't find them online, you can either purchase them, or check them out at a library. Once you start actually reading and studying the information in these books, you will usually be led to other books and artists that the authors write about in the texts. One thing leads to another, and before you know it, you'll see how deep the well of knowledge and inspiration actually goes.

I know some people might get angry that I've given away a lot of "secret" information on what are considered to be some really good books (some of them took a lot of effort, reading and researching, to find), but the more people that know about them, the better as far as I'm concerned. Most people probably won't even read this post or the books I mentioned anyway either. I certainly haven't gotten to reading them all myself yet, and just like most people I like to look at the pretty pictures and completely ignore what's written in the books sometimes too. But the text is often really worth reading, even if it's written in an archaic way. I'll probably end up mentioning these same books again later in subsequent postings, so please forgive me if I seem too repetitive.

In my next post, I'll continue with what I wrote about CalArts as it pertains to teachers.

Do yourself a favor and join Cartoon Retro!

2009-06-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

I've been a member of Cartoon Retro for over 2 1/2 years, possibly longer, it's hard to remember. Shane Glines has been consistently updating and adding artwork to the site for a lot longer than that--he started it in 2004 I believe. It is definitely worth joining this site.

I made this teaser image of some of my favorite pieces of artwork you can find in there once you join, and there are hundreds more pieces like this inside. I hope Shane doesn't mind.

I have shown some friends and co-workers some of the amazing artwork Shane has archived there, and they are always blown away. But for some reason they still don't join up. I have a difficult time understanding this. It seems people will readily pay 50 dollars a year for X-Box live, but they find it difficult to pay the same amount to see thousands of pieces of incredible artwork on a site which is updated almost everyday. The site also has a $5.00 monthly option which will grant you access for a month to see if you like it, and if you don't, you can easily cancel. That's cheaper than the cost of most magazines these days.

Nobody has put me up to advertise this, I just think the site is really worth joining. I hope a lot more people become members and support it.

Chuck Jones Part 3: Shapes

2009-06-09T10:52:00.000-07:00

The older I get, the more I realize the importance of shape. Shape is what really separates a good artist from a great artist in my opinion. Of course there are other aspects which contribute to making a piece of artwork great like composition, staging, line quality, pattern, texture, value, edge, color, lighting, pose, acting, anatomical knowledge, proportions, perspective, variation, contrast, ect. But when you really boil it all down, it's usually has a lot to do with shape. Good shape encompasses so many of these elements in and of itself.

Composition, at it's most basic level, is pretty much how one arranges shapes within the frame. Look at this background Maurice Noble (I assume) did for one of Chuck's cartoons.

It's essentially just a lot of great shapes arranged in an interesting and appealing way. Some could argue that the tree branches are linear elements, but even then, their thickness in terms of shape and how the branches break off into smaller linear shapes is what makes it look great, at least to me.

Sometimes we might look at an artist we admire and wonder how they are drawing hands so well, or what makes the way they draw a building or paint a tree look so good. The basic answer is most likely because they use great shapes and organize them well. There will be subtleties within that of course, and the artist's experience and knowledge of design, interesting proportions, anatomy, perspective, and so forth are probably big contributors to why their shapes are so good. But at it's most basic level great shapes are usually what makes an artist like Milt Kahl stand out above some one like Preston Blair. Both are great, but one arguably has more appeal in his work than the other.

That's my opinion for now anyway, maybe it will change later. I'm just trying to make the point on how important shape really is, since we tend to get stuck on anatomy, form, and all these other things so much sometimes. Solid structure on top of a bad shape, won't save a drawing. The shape is the graphic foundation, so it should be a great shape. Sometimes drawing a solid structure will create a bad shape, so we need to have the eye for a good one, and change it accordingly.

Here's one thing Chuck Jones said about shape:

It's interesting to see Jones articulate that animation is essentially dealing with shapes, he also mentions some great things about character as well. I put the drawing of the dog here because it has a great use of shapes. The shapes of his forearms with their straight sides contrasting their curved sides as well as the interesting variations of shape with his ears are all fantastic. His overall pose is a nice simple shape as well.

Again I would like to point out that these drawings and quotes are from the books "Chuck Amuck", and "Chuck Redux". Both are worth purchasing, or checking out from your local library.

Here are some drawings Jones did for a series of cartoons starring a young boy called Ralph Phillips, who has an out of control imagination. Some of my favorite cartoons he ever did.

What expresses shape more than this figure standing in silhouette?

If you really analyze this drawing there are so many great things happening with shape here. The skewed and brutish shape of his head with his asymmetrical ears is so varied and interesting. Look at the way the changes in the outside of the shape represent the material of his shirt and pants. Again, we can see the interesting contrasts of one side of the shape to the other side-- Simple versus complex, straight versus curve. This is what makes the drawing look appealing, adds interest, and gives it character. These shapes don't seem to be random or haphazard decisions either. It could be completely intuitive on Jones' part, but I'm of the opinion that he put a lot of thought into these drawings.

Finally, just a couple more examples of Jones' work that I think have great shapes.

I don't know what cartoon this was done for, but I really like it. Especially the girl cat with the stripe down her back. Talk about some amazing shapes! Her head shape, and especially her body shape down to her feet, is gorgeous. Not many people can draw shapes this well anymore.

This horse is truly awesome in my opinion. Not only does it have great shapes, but it expresses the overall character so well. You can really see that Daffy's main concern is how cool he looks riding on his horse. This drawing really expresses Daffy's pompousness, illustrates how well his horse in manicured, and all the wonderful shapes here are a part of that expression. It is a drawing worth studying, especially for its use of shapes.

So even though I was long-winded about it, I hope it's clear how important shape can be in a drawing. Shapes can be based on many things like knowledge of the form, anatomy, perspective ect., but at the end of the day it should just simply be a great shape, and I think that Chuck Jones exhibits this better than most. His shapes are really pushed and interesting, yet some how remain balanced and harmonious as well.

Chuck Jones Part 2: Going Rough

2009-06-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to do the perfect drawing right out of the gate. I know there are some artists who can quickly throw down a series of five or six simple, beautiful lines and it's always an amazing drawing. Everything is there. Perfect. Ready to hang on the wall of an Art Gallery.

While I'd really like to be able to do that some day, I'm not there yet. I have to go through a process by putting something really rough down and then working with it. Kind of as if I were sculpting, roughing out a basic form in clay and then adding, subtracting, and pushing things around on top of that initial rough shape until it is gradually honed into a finished piece. I don't know how many other people can relate to this way of working, but I feel like I see this process in the work of Chuck Jones.

Of course Chuck Jones' roughs are beautiful, because he drew with such a natural sense of appeal. But look at how rough these frogs are from his "One Froggy Evening" short:

The feet, hands, arms in some of these are literally scribbles and he left them that way. What's really important though, reads--The character and the pose. With these as his foundation, he could do another pass where he works everything out and finishes it off. I have some examples of him doing that here:

These drawings are from his books "Chuck Amuck" and "Chuck Redux", the drawings of the frog are from one of the books as well. The rough of the man sneaking away with the box under his jacket is actually from one book, and the clean-up is from the other. I put them together here because it's interesting to see how he changed and clarified things from the rough to the final. Especially in the drawing of the kid. Jones changed the initial rough and drew his baseball cap on backwards as well as turning his feet more inward in the clean-up, which seems to clarify the attitude and quality of the character. His arm holding the baseball glove has also been made a lot clearer. While he may have lost a tiny bit of appeal from the initial rough, he mostly clarified it and he arguably made it better.

Cleaning up a final drawing has always been a tough thing for me, so I've been tending to try and make it perfect in the rough and as a consequence wasting too much time on it. We can't all be Alex Toth unfortunately, some of us are actually human. As good as Chuck Jones was, I think he was human too, or at least I can relate to the way he seems to draw a lot more. If you get hung up with the clean-up phase like I do, these drawings show how Jones did it, so maybe we can all learn something from them.

The real point of this post though, is that it's okay to go rough, and just leave it. Look at how rough Jones went here, they're almost more a series of indications than they are drawings. We can always go back and do another pass to clean it up and clarify it later. The important thing is to get the idea out.

Chuck Jones Part 1: Chouinard

2009-06-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

So I've been busy preparing a post on Chuck Jones, gathering and preparing artwork that I've found inspiring by him to share here. While going through the image files I noticed a particularly interesting block of text that was next to a drawing I scanned. I'm pretty sure it is from his book "Chuck Amuck", but it could be from "Chuck Redux" as well. Both books are worth reading, but more on that later. This paragraph was so interesting to me that I wanted to share it now.

This particular passage is about Chouinard, the art school Chuck Jones attended in Los Angeles. I highlighted what I thought the most important part of the text was, but there's a wealth of information beyond that as well. Here is the text:

Wow. I have a lot I can say about this, but I'll try to keep it as short as I can.

First off, if you admire Chuck Jones as much as I do, then you'll appreciate actually knowing what the most important thing he discovered at art school was, and what his number one rule is for great drawing, because his drawings are phenomenal. It's told straight from Jones to the reader in this book.

If you don't know a lot about the art school called Chouinard, it's worth researching. Marc Davis taught there as well as many other extraordinary teachers/artists. My Great Uncle was actually a student there in the early 1950's and I have some things to share about that in a later post. Chouinard is the school which eventually became the California Institute of the Arts, otherwise known as CalArts. I attended CalArts from 2001-2005, so I also plan on sharing some things about that here later as well. It's also interesting what Jones says about his figure drawing teacher, Donald Graham, in this excerpt too. I'm hoping to write a post later on about figure drawing that relates to exactly what Chuck Jones talks about here regarding "imposing a personal style of drawing" on students.

Finally, I'd just like to make a note on researching things, and what else that I've found important in the text. Chuck Jones mentions about 15 things in this paragraph that are worth looking into. The first one I already mentioned is Chouinard. Chouinard is of special interest to me, because many of the artists I look up to in animation went to the school, and said that they learned a great deal there. The more I can find out about what the students were taught and the teachers who taught there, the better. I truly regret not asking my Great Uncle more about Chouinard before he passed away in 2005, unforunately I didn't really know how important the art school he attended was until he was near the end of his life.

The next things Jones talks about here that I think are interesting are the art and artists he mentions in the context of his "most important and stunning discovery" in art school: Cro-Magnon art, Claes Oldenburg, Beatrix Potter, Feininger, Kandinsky...ect. I haven't even really looked much at the work of these artists myself, but they are probably worth checking out if you like Chuck Jones. It's insightful to see who Jones seems to admire and who he considers to be accomplished artists in this paragraph.

Lastly mentioned again, is Donald Graham, whom Jones says was his greatest teacher (Graham also taught classes to the artists at Disney as well). Donald Graham wrote a book himself called "Composing Pictures" that is also worth reading. I started reading it a while ago, unfortunately I haven't finished it yet. I hope to get back to it some time soon. Simon Nicolaides is also mentioned here as being a great teacher too. I suspect that it's a misprint and that Jones was actually referring to Kimon Nicolaides, who wrote a book I've heard great things about called "The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study".

I hope that it doesn't sound too much like I'm lecturing here. My primary goal is to share information which I've found interesting or exciting. I also hope that it can encourage students, and maybe even some working professionals, to supplement their learning with books or to revisit some that have been sitting on the shelf for a while. When I read a passage like the one above, I see not only the great knowledge that Jones imparted about his opinion on the importance of line to us, but I also see all those other names and things to look up and research. Just through reading this short passage and a bit of research we've been lead to two other entire books to read (5 books total if you also include George Bridgman's), and a dozen more people to research further. That's the really exciting thing about it for me.

When I hear people complaining about the instruction they've received in Art School, I can relate to it and had some issues with it myself, but on the other hand there is also always an opportunity for us to read a book and learn something too. I will write more about that later though, for now I'd like to stay focused on the wonderful work of Chuck Jones.

Read @ your library

2009-06-02T01:15:00.001-07:00

I can't stress my opinion about the importance of reading enough, and it's why I chose to write about it first. Reading good books is probably one of the most important things a person can do for themselves. If there's one thing someone takes away from this blog, I hope that it's to read books or to read more books. I struggle to do it enough myself.

I recently watched a documentary on the life of Confucius, an important social philosopher, who lived in China during 551 BC – 479 BC. It was interesting to learn the story of his life. One of the most insightful things I took from the documentary was that Confucius spent much of his time in the libraries of his era, reading as many ancient texts as he possibly could. It's no wonder that such an exceptional person, who's brilliant philosophies affected so many countries of the Far East, spent his time reading.

Here's a quote from him:

"You cannot open a book without learning something."
— Confucius

Buttermilk Skies

2009-06-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

It's a term that my Grandma uses when the clouds look a certain way.
It doesn't really have much to do with what I plan on sharing on this blog, other than the fact that it's an old term that people don't use much anymore, and I'd like to write about some good things of the past here that people don't seem to pay much attention to anymore as well. But really I just liked the way it sounded in its own weird, sweet, and funny way.

I hope that people can find some inspiration here, but I'm mostly doing it to inspire myself. I plan to make some posts about some books that I've found useful, write about some artists that I like as well as show examples of their work, and I'd also like to share my opinion on some things here and there too.

Some of the artwork I plan on sharing is from books that I own. I hope that isn't a problem. Every time I share something from a book though, I'll be sure and post a link to amazon.com or some other resource to purchase it. If anyone has a problem with it, please let me know. Hopefully it will become clear that my intention is to promote a particular book and get people interested in it.

I don't plan on having the comments option available on the posts, as I will be sharing some pretty straight forward opinions and I'd rather not get involved in a huge debate on a particular subject. So please take my opinion with a grain of salt as they say. I would also like to talk about some other things I'm interested in here that go beyond the realm of art, animation, film, ect. Hopefully it will all come together. Maybe it won't, but it's also an opportunity for me to become more succinct with my writing and to organize my thoughts better too.

Anyway, if you've made it this far, thank you for reading this and I hope that you'll find what I have to share at least interesting and hopefully useful.