Update: Internet Explorer

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

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 The following is a continuation of that unpublished post I wrote a while back, and it is about teachers: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

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!

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

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

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

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.