Animation Artifacts &Books &Models 29 Aug 2007 07:40 am
Fantasia sketches
– I thought I’d scan some of the drawings from the Deems Taylor Fantasia book published in 1940.
This is basically a storybook of the film with a lot of beautiful illustrations from the artwork done for the film. The only other Disney feature that I can think of which has a similar type book, richly and beautifully produced, is a limited edition American Express edition of Snow White produced for the fiftieth anniversary.
I assume many of these illustrations were on the dvds as part of the extras, but I haven’t attempted to find out.
I’ve scanned the images illustrating The Dance of the Hours segment and have eliminated the text and illustrative borders to put a complete focus on the sketches. If anyone knows who did the art, please don’t hesitate to share the information.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
on 30 Aug 2007 at 12:00 am 1.Pete Emslie said …
Hi Michael,
The loose, full scene watercolours featuring Ben Ali Gator, as well as the one with the ostriches, were done by Lee Blair. (Brother of Preston and husband of Mary). several of these illustrations are directly attributed to him in John Culhane’s book on “Fantasia”, and his signature can actually be seen on the bottom of a couple of them.
The one of Hyacinth Hippo reclining on her divan, I’m guessing is a colour study by Al Dempster, who was background painter on this segment. It certainly looks like his style that I associate with his storybook illustrations for Golden. I could be wrong on this but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
The pencil, ink and watercolour pose studies of the hippos might be the work of Albert Hurter, as it says in Culhane’s book that he was given the task of adapting the T.S. Sullivant hippos that were being used as inspiration into animatable designs. Similarly, Martin Provenson is credited with designing the elephants, and Campbell Grant with the ostriches. Frankly, I’m not familiar enough with their styles to hazard a guess as to whether this is their work or not.
on 30 Aug 2007 at 12:33 pm 2.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Thanks for putting these up and thanks to Pete for the interesting background info. Seeing picturese like these makes me want to draw, which is a high compliment to the artists.
on 30 Aug 2007 at 8:00 pm 3.Pete Emslie said …
You know what? The more I look at that reclining hippo, I’m thinking that she’s also likely painted by Lee Blair, not Al Dempster. I may have been reading too much into the style of painting that I had perceived the first time.
Those pen and watercolour hippo pose sketches really are wonderful, though, aren’t they? In her mind, she is the epitome of gracefulness!
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