Weekly Round Up - Art Quotes
On Illustration:
The word illustration come with the same root word: illuminate.
It means to shine light onto something other than itself.
Illustration is to serve something outside of itself
Marshall Vandruff, Developing An Illustration
On Stories:
A good movie starts with a good idea for a good story…
Good stories also have a good clear theme, like “don’t judge a book by its cover” in Beauty and the Beast…
Along with theme, good stories also have at their core a very basic action:
Lion King: “Go home.”
The Little Mermaid and Cinderella: “Get the prince.”
101 Dalmatians: “Find the puppies.”
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves: “Stop the wicked witch.”
Beauty and the Beast: “Break the spell.”
Don Hahn
Animation Magic, 10-11.
On Hard Work:
The nucleus of artists from forty or fifty years ago was no more talented than this class. They had to go to art school to learn to draw, they had to read, study, and search; they had to discover for themselves what they had to offer.
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 57.
On Mental and Physical Preparation:
You must create. The injunction of life is to create or perish…I have a formula: “Impression minus expression equals depression.”
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 47.
On Composition
People can be very forgiving if the composition speaks. A composition can grab people across the room. (Nathan Fowkes)
On Anatomy vs. Gesture:
Our interest is in the gesture, which is the vehicle used in fitting a character into the role it is called upon to act out…
So to approach a model with the idea of copying a human figure plus its clothing could be called a waste of time. Our interest is in seeing the differences in each personality and their individualistic gestures and, like a good caricaturist, capture the essence of those differences…
There are really only a few principles of drawing but an infinite number of personality traits and gestures. To “hole in” after learning the body structures is to miss the excitement and the satisfaction of using that information to tell the story of life through the nuances of gesture…
We cannot back off from our emotions—if we do the result will be a mere anatomical reproduction…
A drawing or a scene is not final when a material representation has been made; it is final when a sensitive depiction of an emotion has been made…Yes, there is anatomy, form, construction, model, and two or three lines of etceteras, but only as far as those things are expressive of the story.
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 45.
More On Gesture:
If we go at drawing from the standpoint of anatomy or model we are less likely to achieve the expression we are after, whereas if we work out some symbols for squash and stretch and apply them to anatomy, we can achieve our sought after gesture.
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 26.
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield’s 7 Reasons for Drawing Consistently (page 34)
Interest in life will grow.
Ability to solve drawing problems will be sharpened.
Creative juices will surge.
Healing fluids will flow throughout your body.
An eagerness for life and experience and growth will crowd out all feelings of ennui and disinterest.
If you go on a trip, whether long or short, let your sketchbook take preference over your camera. You’ll find yourself looking and seeing more than ever before. You will find yourself searching out new things to see, new places to visit, and more varieties of people to “capture” in your sketchbook.
Your sketchbook will become your diary. Think of it as a graphic autobiography.
On Seeing Reality:
Seeing into the realities—beyond the surfaces of the subject.
Robert Henri
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 45.
What a horrible fate—to be just a drawing.Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 29.
Bruce McIntyre’s 6 Rules of Perspective:
