Mary Blair’s Alice – Electric Tiki Design

This maquette is US$125 from here. It is really nice looking although not as nice as the art work that inspired it IMO.

Mary Blair Illustration for Baker’s Instant

Another great Mary Blair illustration for Baker’s Instant chocolate flavouring.

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Mary Blair

From November ACMI are going to have a huge exhibition of Disney art works and I am really happy to read that it will inclue some great Mary Blair stuff. I think that Mary is my favourite Disney artist at the moment. Here are a few reasons why…

I made an earlier Mary Blair related post back in February that can be viewed here.

It All Started With A Mouse

Until July 18 the Silver K Gallery in High Street Armadale are running an exhibition of original animation art. I love the Silver K Gallery and used to go there all the time when I worked at a place around the corner fifteen years ago. Back in the mid-1990s collecting animation art was quite a trendy thing to do, and Silver K had another branch in either Southland or Chadstone. There was also the Animation Art Gallery that was nearby in South Yarra, but to my knowledge that has since closed down, as has the Warner Bros Studio Store and all of the Disney Stores that were in Australia. It seems that since about 2001 everyone has forgotten about the great animated cartoons of the golden age and Silver K’s Armidale store is the only place in Melbourne where you can still get animation art work.

I see that Gold 104 has been heavily advertising the Disney exhibition and are giving away a sericel to promote it. Firstly I must say that despite what Gold 104 have been saying THIS IS NOT AN ORIGINAL ANIMATION CEL. IT WAS NOT USED IN A CARTOON. Instead it is what is known as a sericel, which according to Animation USA is…

Serigraphy, the printing term for the silk-screen process, is a fine art process in which editions are created by meticulously screening the colors of an image onto the back of an acetate cel or the surface of fine art paper or canvas – one color at a time. The image is separated into its individual colors, then each is transferred onto a stretched screen of silk which acts like a stencil. Inks are forced through the stretched screen onto a cel, fine art paper or canvas, one color at a time. When all of the individual colors are screened onto the cel or paper, together they form the complete image. Silk-screened cels – called sericels – are typically modest in price since their edition sizes are open or large, and are not hand-signed. Limited edition serigraphs on paper or canvas are typically hand-signed by the artist indicating their personal approval of each work of art, then individually numbered to identify each work of art as a part of the total edition.

Still it does look nice and appears to be based on the 1938 Donald Duck cartoon Donald’s Better Self. It looks so nice that I have entered the competition myself, in the hopes of winning. There are other nice works featured in the exhibition including a sericel based on Magician Mickey, which I like.

There’s also a painting of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who predated Mickey and was a star in the late 1920s, until Walt Disney lost control of the character.

I also like the silk screen paintings of the cartoon posters such as that for Goofy & Wilbur, Goofy’s first solo cartoon.

Alice In Wonderland – Mary Blair Art

The new Tim Burton version of Alice In Wonderland is about to be released and I think I have some really mixed views on the film. I think that when I do watch it I will be distracted by Helena Bonham Carter’s massive digitally manipulated head.

I would like to take this opportunity to post some pics of Mary Blair’s concept artwork for the original animated version of Alice. Mary Blair was an animator who worked for Disney on films like Alice In Wonderland, Peter Pan, Song Of The South and Cinderella. She was also an illustrator who did the artwork for several Little Golden Books.

Not Quite Right

I caught this cartoon a week or so on Cartoon Brew and thought it was pretty interesting.

The problem with the cartoon is that it was trying to make a satirical statement but it is just wrong. Disney Princesses have not been ‘white only’ for over a decade and a half or more. Perhaps Pocahontis, Mulan and Jasmine don’t count as being non-white, as they are not African American.  I don’t know, but the concept of race in America confuses me sometimes, especially when there are black people who argue that President Obama is not black enough to be black.

Anyway, as you can see from the above picture, all the Princesses are not white.

A Disney Christmas Gift

Here is a Christmas special from The Wonderful World Of Disney that aired way back in 1982. It features lots of Christmassy clips from old cartoons.

It would be great if Disney could air something like this again, but it seems that the current regime don’t really care about the Disney Company’s past, only about how to make money with their tween related programming.

Donald Duck: Murderer

I came across this a while ago and I think it’s quite funny.
Not sure who it’s by though.

Balloon Boy Pooh

Here’s something I should have posted a month ago when Balloon Boy was still relevant.

Emo Mickey

I have had this pic for years but only now have decided to post it. It’s from the Mickey Mouse daily comic strip from the 1930s, by Floyd Gottfredson.