Disney News from 1954 and Today

Every once in a while, Andreas Deja or James Gurney (in this case, Gurney) will post another vintage Disney behind-the-scenes video. These shorts tend to be a little cheesy and staged, but they're fascinating insights into the way things were done at Disney. They also give me a strong feeling of nostalgia for the old days, when films were produced with love and care, and were allowed to move at their own pace, unconcerned about ADD viewers being distracted by their cellphones.

The film highlights Disney studio artists Marc Davis, Eyvind Earle, Walter Peregoy, and Joshua Meador in the various ways they contribute to a movie like Sleeping Beauty.

"Go forward with what you have to say, expressing things as you see them." - Robert Henri, The Art Spirit. I hear this advice repeated often nowadays by artists I follow: don't try to achieve or imitate a "style" - just draw, and you will find your own style, which is better than anything you could have attempted to imitate. (Reminds me of that quote, 'Be the best version of yourself instead of a second rate version of someone else'... or something like that.)

"Making an animated film is a cooperative effort. Each artist must be prepared to modify his own pet ideas, in order to achieve the best possible solution to the problem. No one has things entirely his own way, but in the end, the result is better than any one of us could have achieved alone." - Marc Davis

This second sentiment is something I've had to learn on my own at work. I'm often working with a team of editors to produce a show. I know I have strengths and weaknesses as an editor, and the other editors help fill in my weak spots while I contribute in the best way I know how. The end result is a completely collaborative effort, which none of us could have done by ourselves.

The four different paintings of the oak tree at the end of the film are wonderful to watch - especially since I am about to be diving into oil painting much sooner than I had thought I would. Concept Design Academy's summer classes went on sale the other day, and I was too slow to get a spot in my top choice for a class, "Sketching for Environment" with Ed Li, which sold out within 10 minutes. As an extreme last minute resort, I grabbed a spot in "Landscape Painting" with Leighton Hickman. I am excited but also very nervous. Oil painting is very much outside of my comfort zone, and I'd been waiting to tackle it until I'd gotten a better foundation in drawing. However, I'm hoping it will turn out to be a blessing in disguise...

Last but not least, there was the very exciting news of Disney announcing their latest animated feature, which will be called "Big Hero Six" and set in the future city of "San Fransokyo." If this first official glimpse into the film is a true indication of its look, I'm very excited for it...

© Gina Florio 2013

"I Am Art" by David Stodolny

As someone who is very prone to 'museum fatigue,' I really enjoyed this short by Dreamworks animator David Stodolny.

He has a making-of video as well. Great to hear him talk about his process.

I confess to be a person who, most of the time, does not 'get' fine art. I can certainly appreciate the techniques of the old masters - but much of modern and contemporary art especially is lost on me. My interest lies in what most people would call commercial art. I like well-executed drawings of characters with lots of appeal and charisma that make you curious about their story. I like sprawling, epic visuals of fantasy worlds with lots of color. I like art that tells a (fairly) concrete story. I visited the Brewery Arts Complex this past weekend for their biannual art walk and read an artist's statement that had something to do with "breaking down the viewer so they can build themselves up again and find their true self and purpose". The art looked to me like lots of grey and blue and tan smudges on a huge canvas. I guess I didn't try very hard to be broken down and reborn while looking at it, but that certainly wasn't my experience.

However - a while ago I wrote about the Andy Goldsworthy documentary 'Rivers and Tides.' If my memory serves, the movie as a whole asks the question of 'what is art'? More specifically, because it takes so long to build Goldsworthy's pieces, and then he then leaves them to break down over time, when are they art and when are they no longer art? You can go down a very long road with that line of questioning - is art the idea in the person's brain? Is it still art when all the natural pieces he uses have broken up into their separate, individual parts again? Were those pieces art before he even started, merely via their potential to become art?

I have always remembered the very last scene - Goldsworthy walks out into a field in wintertime and throws huge handfuls of snow into the air. He lets the sparkling pieces drift away on the wind and watches them go. And then he turns around and walks back home. I remember, at the time I watched it, having my mind opened to the idea that he had created art that lasted only 4 or 5 seconds.

At the end of the day, it's my belief that 'art' is really anything anyone wants it to be. It's anything you find beautiful, or that appeals to your emotions, or makes you look at or think about something in a different manner than you had before, or that serves its function in an extremely efficient and pleasing way (in which case, the Dyson vacuum that I bought over the weekend is a work of art. THAT is a beautifully functional machine). I may not have 'understood' that artist's work at the Brewery Art Walk this past weekend - but at the end of the day, his art makes sense to him, and it also makes sense to someone who's going to buy it for tens of thousands of dollars, and he'll get to continue living in a beautiful downtown loft throwing colors on canvases all day, so who's really got the last laugh there?

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Posts are gonna be really few and far between for the time being - I've even stopped doing daily instagrams (though I'm still making sure to sit with a sketchbook for at least a few minutes every day). Work continues to be crazy, and our lives are about to get crazier still - May and June hold several trips, visitors, AND a new art class (I am signing up tomorrow for Concept Design Academy's 'Sketching for Environment' with Ed Li). My motivation levels are running very low lately, which I think is due to a combination of a crazy work schedule, lack of exercise, lack of a class/artist environment keeping me accountable, and perhaps even a little bit of art burnout. One day I feel like anything is possible and everything is attainable - and the next I feel like I'm peering up through layers and layers and layers of inadequacies and things I'll never have time to learn. It's the ciiIIIIIRRRRclle of LIIIIIiiiife...

© Gina Florio 2013

TED Talk - Robots Will Steal Your Job, But That's OK

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about how increasing technological automation will affect the future of the art industry, and the future of society in general. It was mainly inspired by a post on the same subject from the Muddy Colors blog.

Today I came across a new TED video that poses the same question, and seems to have an answer for it as well.

"As much as 80% of people hate their job... that's 4 out of 5 spending most of their useful lifetime doing something they don't particularly enjoy." [...] "We are in a kind of work paradox. Because we work long and hard hours on jobs we hate to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like."

This reminded me of an article I read recently, Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed:

"We’ve been led into a culture that has been engineered to leave us tired, hungry for indulgence, willing to pay a lot for convenience and entertainment, and most importantly, vaguely dissatisfied with our lives so that we continue wanting things we don’t have. We buy so much because it always seems like something is still missing... The 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours (the average office worker gets less than three hours of actual work done in 8 hours) but because it makes for such a purchase-happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. It keeps them watching television, and its commercials. It keeps them unambitious outside of work."

Many people might think this all smacks of conspiracy theories and lofty ideals not grounded in reality, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree. And I'll reiterate that I count myself as one of the lucky few people who enjoys my job, or at least the creative aspects of it. But, as people do, I often find myself dreaming of the things I could do if my life were free to pursue what I wanted. The article continues -

"I’ve only been back at work for a few days, but already I’m noticing that the more wholesome activities are quickly dropping out of my life: walking, exercising, reading, meditating, and extra writing. The one conspicuous similarity between these activities is that they cost little or no money, but they take time."

I think I could safely call myself addicted to learning. Obviously I'm passionate about art, learning to draw and paint - but there's so much more I'd like to achieve with my life. I'd love to learn to play an instrument, or two or three. I'd love to learn several languages. There are so many books I want to read. I want to learn to sew and make my own clothes. I'd love to really get to know food... grow my own fruits and vegetables, bake fresh bread, create great meals. Animation. Photography. Sculpting. Woodworking. Archery. But I know I'll never truly have the time to learn any of those things to the extent and level that I'd like.

Federico Pistono makes the transition to a fully automated society sound very simple in his TED Talk - and perhaps it COULD be that simple - if only all of society hopped on board at the same time. However, I doubt it will be the case, for the simple reason that money exists. Not only does it exist - our entire society is based on it. Speaking generally, people love free time - but they love money more. I feel like one of the only people I know who have realized that time is infinitely more valuable than money.

Watching that TED Talk actually made me sad - because I had the crushing realization that I don't think this will happen in our lifetime. I think the people in power will fight tooth and nail to keep our society based on money. Full automation probably won't happen for 100 years or more. And I'll probably never be a crackshot with a bow and arrow. But, I suppose worse things have happened.

© Gina Florio 2013

'CosWorld' news / Remastered Super Metroid Screenshot

Despite appearances, I AM still alive and I DO still plan on keeping up the blog and daily sketches... it just might be a bit here and there over the next few weeks. Work has really ramped up and is keeping us pretty busy. The good news is, I'm editing the first show that I'm actually really excited to work on. It's called 'CosWorld,' a docuseries following several well-known cosplayers as they build their costumes and compete at comic conventions around the country. It will premiere on SyFy on August 27 (right after Face Off, one of my favorite reality shows)! Full press release here.

An awesome Zelda cosplay, which is NOT in the show because that would be illegal for me to show you.

Team Rocket... that's right! Also not in the show.

Needless to say, as a huge nerd, I'm very excited about this and have been enjoying my time cutting this awesome footage immensely. I'm also simultaneously disappointed at the number of people in my life who I've explained the premise to and their first question is "What's cosplay?" I tend to forget that not everyone lives in a nerd bubble like myself...

But I digress. Art things!

I came across this video some time ago on Laughing Squid. It's a timelapse of artist TJ Townsend's process 'remastering' a screenshot of 1994 SNES game Super Metroid. Even having never played the game, I got a lot out of watching this video. What's amazing about this artwork is that he didn't draw a single thing - this is all internet found photo manipulation. When I watch videos like these, I'm reminded of what an amazing program Photoshop truly is.

TJ says,

In order to give the screenshot a 16×9 aspect ratio this is not an actual screenshot from the game, but made up of several screenshots and sprite sets. Included in this scene is a metroid, which is not accurate to the game, but believable since there wouldn’t be a logical reason that one could not wander into Mother Brain’s room (And I really wanted to remake the metroid).

Have a great week, everyone - I'll be back as soon as I can!

© Gina Florio 2013

Ze Frank: Thoughts on the Creative Career

This man's eyebrows are off the charts... and the words that come out of his mouth are pretty great too.

Anyone else noticing a theme here? Ze Frank: "If you want to be a writer, you should be writing... not tomorrow, but TODAY." Austin Kleon - "Shut up and write the book." Noah Bradley - "If you want to make art then you need to MAKE ART." Martha Graham - "JUST DO IT."

And just so you know, I talk a big game like I follow this rule inherently and just churn out drawings like clockwork, but it's amazing to me how still, sometimes one of the hardest things to get myself to do is sit down and just fucking draw. These past couple days especially I've been plagued by negative thoughts throughout the process, I haven't turned out a single thing I like, my hand seems to have an entirely different agenda than my brain, and it's frustrating and depressing and annoying and hard! I'd rather just watch TV or do ANYTHING else that doesn't require me to think and feel so much! But goddamn it I'm going to keep doing it even if it keeps being frustrating and depressing and annoying and hard! Does that make me a masochist?

© Gina Florio 2013

Daily Sketches Weeks 13-14

Last couple weeks of work.

Mar 22 - drawings of Zosia Mamet that don't look like Zosia Mamet

(I was still working on the poster at this point so I missed a day)

Mar 24 - initial sketches for a personal creature design project

Mar 25 - I'm slightly obsessed with the BBC's 'Sherlock'/Benedict Cumberbatch

Mar 26 - more Cumberbatches

Mar 27 - preliminary Watson sketches

Mar 28 - gnome lady

Mar 29 - a visit to the Getty with my family, who was visiting

Mar 30 - cartoon versions of family

Mar 31 - some silly easter bunny concepts

Apr 1 - finished Watson

Apr 2 - Moriarity

Apr 3 - Sabor y Cultura Café - Dave's and my drawing/writing spot

Apr 4 - goats - research for the creature design project

Apr 5 - random giraffe professor

Apr 6 - I'm short.

I've now been keeping up with sketch-a-day for 3 months, and I'm so glad I have. Last fall, it was so easy to start my day, sit down at my computer in the morning, and think, "I'll just draw during lunch at work." Then lunch would roll around, and I'd think, "I'll just draw tonight." And then I'd go home from work, cook dinner, collapse on the couch and say, "I'll just draw tomorrow." But now that I've been keeping up with it for so long, it would actually be hard to stop, because I'd be ruining my own running streak. Some days aren't great (Easter bunnies). But some days I go to bed being proud of what I produced that day (Moriarity). And those days make it worth it.

Side note - Becky Kramer's Brother, the band whose poster I drew, had their first concert in a while on Friday night, and I was very excited to see that they had gotten prints of the poster! And not only that - they'd set aside a poster for me and all signed it. I may not be thrilled with the final result - but I have to admit, it was really special to hold a print of my first semi-official commission, and my first digital painting, in my hands. It's up on my home office wall now, serving as a reminder of what I've accomplished so far, and of how far I have still to go.

© Gina Florio 2013

Begin at the Beginning

Wise words, which have taken me a year to understand.

Or, put more succinctly:

 

 

 

© Gina Florio 2013