Happy Holidays!

It's been 18 months since these were first posted, and as it's the right time of year and I haven't a new post ready, I repost them here for your enjoyment.




Have a lovely holiday, everyone.

all the rare material here appears--as before--through the generous courtesy of James Walker

...and here's one more for the road, from my house:

Merry, merry!

Disney's 1956 Holiday Card

Another old favorite, originally posted when I started this blog two years ago: the Disney Studio's 1956 Christmas card.
It looks much better in person.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

Christmas 'round the corner

A million things to do, and with work steaming along right up to the brink of the break, posting has become an intangible dream at the Blackwing factory. Just for kicks I'll post a few of the entries of Christmas past this weekend; fun graphics and perhaps entirely new to more recent visitors.

Hope everyone's doing their duty in the malls and byways of the planet, taking time to breathe--and enjoying the filmic qualities of this most noisy/twinkling time of year. My own (early 20th-century street designed)street has transformed into Bedford Falls lately--the happy version.

Nico Noël

Like most of my ilk, every year I save those holiday cards that are either sentimentally precious or very appealing-or both.
The thing is, after I put them away I rarely know exactly where I've put them. Here's an example from lo, these many years past(1994 actually); it just fell out of a pile of saved paper.
The artist is the prodigious and wonderful Nico Martlet. He handmade and painted all his cards that year-lucky me!

Daniela Strijleva...

...is my new hero.

She's just started a sketchblog and it's a visual feast--already full of beautifully observed work.
As if her own drawing wasn't enough, she's also gone to the trouble of posting quite a few illustrations from Ronald Searle's must-have Paris Sketchbook, a task I'd intended to do but not yet got around to.

Pay her a visit:
Daniela Strijleva

Show and Tell-Mickey Mouse Ephemera

click to view at a decent size

I've been tidying my drawing area trying to cull the unnecessary stuff, and just for fun I thought I'd share this keen pencil box, a birthday gift from my friend Elinor. I've had it on my desk for ages, propped up where I can look at it--the colors and general fun of the thing are a nice bit of eyecandy for the workspace.

What if? Kimball and Jones...

above image from the Cartoon Modern blog


Michael Barrier has a new post up today with some very interesting ruminations on what might have been regarding Disney's "Sleeping Beauty". Well worth your time.

Podcast and Post alerts

A quick heads up to let readers know that Clay Kaytis has just posted a new episode of his Animation Podcast, this one an interview with Disney veteran Dale Baer. He's a man with a long and distinguished history as well as an enormous amount of goodwill in the industry; I've known dozens of people who worked with or for Dale and not one had anything but very happy memories.


an example from the pen of Dave Pimentel
And on Drawings From a Mexican there's some very good tips about drawing an uninspiring model. Dave Pimentel has been even busier than usual lately, so an update from him is always welcome.

And one more [technical] thing: although I like the "new" template that you currently see here(in particular its organizing sidebar that directs the reader to just how obsessive I am about Fred Moore and other subjects), the interface for adding links is a huge pain; they must be done one at a time, laboriously. Anyone who has a way around this, give me a tip, won't you? I cringe at losing all my links to blogs I love and want to point the reader to...but this one-by-one thing is for the birds.

Long Ago and Far Away

Yes, that's me.

Lou Redux

Lou Romano" "The House"

The mailman just now brought my household the Nov. 5 issue of the New Yorker. Flipping it open, I am looking at a page of artwork, all by various artists. One is obviously a John Currin...William Wegman's costumed weimaraners on the opposite page, and--what's this one at the top? Another lovely painting by--Lou Romano! With a cute character sketch underneath!

Lou's work is in the magazine again(he did a cover for them a while back) as part of a portfolio of artists' variations on the theme of Hansel and Gretel, to celebrate the Met's remounting of that opera in New York. All the art will be on display, the magazine tells me, at the Metropolitan's Gallery Met(I didn't even know they had a gallery, but it makes sense) from November 16 through February. I'd scan it but maybe you should buy the New Yorker and check it out. It's a good magazine.

As Steve Jobs would say "Pretty cool, huh?".

ETA: The New Yorker's online edition has much more from the exhibition posted on its website; there are two more of Lou's paintings there, including the image I linked to at the top of this post. Check it out by all means.

Happy Birthday, Ollie! With love and thanks for everything

Thanks to an alert by John Canemaker, I know that today, Halloween 2007, is Ollie Johnston's 95th birthday.

Really, what can be said about a man on such a day when he's lived so long that he's influenced millions--both professionally and personally--and it's all been said before, often by people who knew him well, worked with him and love him dearly?
It's a tough one. I met Ollie just once at his home many years ago, shortly before "Illusion Of Life" was published. I saw him speak at festivals and animation events; mostly I know him through his animation, which has always entertained and touched me, and always, always expertly fooled me into completely and utterly believing his drawings were alive.

Happy Birthday, Master Animator!

It's hard to find an image of Ollie alone in a shot--of course, for virtually all of his working life he's most often pictured with his dearest friend, the late Frank Thomas, as above. From David Nethery's blog I swiped the other shot of Ollie at his desk at the very beginnings of his illustrious career. Three guesses who's giving some guidance while Ollie looks on.

Fred Moore and family-previously unpublished

Here's a wonderful photograph: Disney animator Fred Moore, his first wife Virginia (for the record, his second wife was also named Virginia) and one of their two daughters, probably taken about 1938 or so.

Of course all we animation fans love the glimpse into the private, candid life of a legendary Disney animator, but as someone else (someone not in the business) pointed out upon seeing it: "it's great to see these kinds of images of people from seventy years ago. It's so vivid and casual-it's as if you're in the moment with them and makes you see them as real people, not caricatures, not just names on the credits or in a book." Indeed. The scene looks strikingly contemporary--the young Mrs. Moore could easily be my mom 30 years later, Fred one of my friends in the story department mugging with their own babies.

When's this insouciant artist going to get his own book? Until then, I'm grateful to be able to pass this happy snap along to Diary readers.

The return of the Carthay Circle

Here's some good news for lovers of animation and film history-and theme parks that could most certainly be a lot better:

Disney's California Adventure will be vastly rehabbed, including a reproduction of the long-demolished Carthay Circle theater.

From the article:
"Favorite California Adventure attractions -- including the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, one of several added in an effort to address criticism that the park had too few blockbuster rides -- won't be dismantled. A host of new attractions will include several based on Pixar animated films such as "Cars" and "Toy Story."
The entrance plaza will be redesigned and iconic structures reminiscent of old-time Hollywood will be added, including a replica of the Carthay Circle Theatre."

The Carthay was where "Snow White" had its lavish Hollywood premiere; in a generous gesture--considering that A list stars like Marlene Dietrich and Shirley Temple were crowding the theatre for the unveiling of Walt's 'folly'--Disney had arranged for all his key artists to be invited to the black tie occasion.
Years later, several of them recounted what it felt like to be there with the creme de la creme of the movie business going nuts over the film they'd slaved on for the longest couple of years of their lives: incredible.

What a neat idea to do this. I can only imagine who came up with it. Thanks, whoever you are.

One Moment Please...

Miss Mary Pickford catches up on her correspondence, circa 1917

I just wanted to note that in choosing a new template for the Diaries, I've inadvertently wiped out all my links. This after sagely counseling someone else that it was possible to put it all right again/not lose links. Uh, yikes. Well, I did save a text file with all the raw linkage so as soon as I'm on that computer I'll do my best to restore the good stuff.

The thing I like about this differently-written template is the ability to organize posts by tags(although I'm chagrined at all the tags being represented at right; there are quite a few that aren't that important). Now the "Fred Moore" and "story" posts can be accessed easily, instead of by searching.

So, just an FYI. More anon.

More Dance of the Hours illos

See the previous post--I'll be updating it further today and later during the week. These scans are tedious work, but I'm happy to be able to share them.