Yesterday in our gesture drawing class at Dreamworks we had an exceptional model, Cassandra. Here she is in one of instructor Dave Pimentel's drawings--one of several he's posted over on his sketchblog, Drawings From A Mexican. I came for the second hour only, which was a shame--this girl had the perfect figure and grace for gesture drawing; she used every bit of her form from her hair to the beautiful way she posed her hands and feet. She also wore a costume and her face had a look that suggested a model for one of the pre-raphaelite painters--Rossetti or Burne-Jones. Figure modeling isn't as easy as it looks, by the by, even for 2 or 5 minute poses. I hope dave's able to post more later...if he can wangle some of his classes' work. Everyone did a super job and had a blast.
Posts
7 comments:
Jenny,
(This is off the subject but it imparts more about Blackwings)
Spike Brandt drew a Chuck Jones posthumous tribute sketch which ran as a color photograph in the Hollywood trade papers upon his passing. Spike was careful to use a genuine Blackwing, which appears at rest on the bottom pegs in the double-paged spread. You might be able to find this image in the archives of either Variety or the Hollywood Reporter.
And, BTW, Eddie and I were among the then-youthful upstarts in Ben Washam's animation class, visiting Chuck in his Tower 12 offices in fall of 1978 or '79 when that verbal exchange I cited on his blog occured, over a decade prior to Tiny Toon Adventures.
Tom Minton
Wow...so Ben was then working for Chuck, I guess. How cool to be able to take classes from Washam! And thanks for the info about the Blackwings.
I actually have(somewhere)a couple of pages of Chuck's "doodles" ; one done I think for the White Seal TV special he did, the other a girl's head in profile.
I wish I could find them--to think they were drawn by my eponymous pencil! Say--what do you think of Blackwings, Tom? Like 'em? Indifferent?
TTA/Jones story: I was on the set of Gremlins 2 with a friend who was in the movie; I was so proud to be working at Warner's on anything, TTA being my first job, and I had endless joy and enthusiasm for the project. I'd brought my friend a pretty decent bunny drawing as a present, and when he introcuced me to Joe Dante(who's a very nice guy as I know you know), I burbled that I was working on this new show...he replied "Oh, God! Chuck HATES that show! It just infuriates him!" and I believe I shrank down like Fred Flintstone to a little nubbin.
Enjoyed hanging out and watching Christopher Lee shoot scenes, though, with Joe throwing tomatoes at him from offscreen. But I became a little gunshy of indiscriminately saying the TT title after that.
ouch!!!
So where are your life drawings from the session? I would love to see them! Great to see that dreamworks is keeping up such workshops for their workers!
I was watching the recently released animaniacs DVDs and noticed your name popping up in the story credits (unless there's someone else who worked at Warner with your exact same name). Anyways, I think that's totally awesome - I grew up being corrupted by that show!
Blackwings? They had a nice feel but tended to break too easily. I like using soft pencils, but preferred Eagle #4Bs, which aren't made anymore, either. The fact that the Blackwing was a drawing pencil with an attached eraser would've infuriated Michael Onken, one of my art teachers. He believed that an artist "should be professional enough to use a pencil without an eraser on the end." Never bothered Chuck Jones, who knew a few things in his prime about drawing.
Benny was at the time we visited Chuck working for Jay Ward as the sole animator under contract, doing Cap'n Crunch commercials and such. During that meeting with Chuck, Jones tried his hardest to talk Benny into doing more layouts for him. There's a whole story relating to that, but I'd rather tell you in a less public forum.
Tom Minton
Wow. Dave's style is brilliant. Thank you for posting this.
Incredible. I have the same set up at Disney, which she models for quite often. It's a shame she is leaving. Please check out my interpretations of this Walt Stanfield approach.
Cheers,
MAC
Post a Comment