gone fishin’

I will be for a while in europe…

masterpieces

so far I guess I have recreated more than one hundred backgrounds from disney’s BAMBI. you probably know that only a few originals from the film are left because most of the scenes where shot in levels with the MULTIPLANE-camera, had to be painted in oil on glass, and after the shots were successful some poor guy had to scrape off the master-paintings from the glass. glass was rare during WWII and had to be reused. the recreated BG’s below were seen the last time in original around 1941/42. the first one is about one third of the full length of the opening pan of the film, shot in 8 levels to create the feel of depth.

© disney enterprises, inc

sketches 513

inspiring art 4

chapter search

on the right side of this blog below the search box ( all the way down… ) you find a new CONTENT list in ALPHABETICAL ORDER. it is easy now to scroll through the content-list with all 839 posts so far, looking for some title that interests you, then type it into the search box. unfortunately wordpress doesn’t offer the ‘click’-option. I will update the list frequently. hope you find what you are looking for -

study 5.4.13

graphic design inspiration 1

who killed cock robin?

‘Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the Sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin.’ – this is the first verse of the 1744 published rhyme in TOMMY THUMB’S PRETTY SONG BOOK. the DISNEY SILLY SYMPHONY with the same title was released on june 26, 1935. DAVID HAND directed the short, the main characters – COCK ROBIN ( BING CROSBY ) and the MAE WEST – like JENNY WREN were designed by JOE GRANT. there are some additional hollywood star caricatures of that period, like a cuckoo bird – HARPO MARX, and the KEYSTONE COPS.

© disney enterprises, inc

inspiring art 3

inspiring art 2

inspiring art 1

studies 27413

lazy afternoon

oberjoch

more brushsets

there seems to be quite some interest in photoshop brushes. it is really easy to create them, and fun too. the only problem occurs after you have done some hundred of them and did not organize them – in a big mess you don’t find anything anymore. to give you some ideas for new brushes I have compiled some below, as well as the painting-tests I usually do to find out if they are as good as I imagined.

brushsets

over the weekend I created some new brushes for my photoshop-brushset #761. the set consists so far of 69 brushes, what brings the total amount of brushes up to an estimated 20.000. below is a test for a ‘halftone’-brush in that same set, I used it to paint some different looking clouds in the STORMY AFTERNOON test. I add as well a compilation of a few more tests for some of the other brushes in that set.

wilhelm m.busch 34

in 1976 WILHELM M.BUSCH illustrated a collection of short stories around horses in a paperback edition of the german wilhelm heyne-verlag, DAS PARADIES DER ERDE ( paradise on earth ). there are dozens of very small printed illustrations in the book, done in pen and ink, ballpoint pen and pencil.

© wilhelm m.busch / heyne verlag muenchen

dirk baksteen

not too much can be found on the internet about DIRK BAKSTEEN, 1886 – 1971. accidentally I saw one of his paintings and liked it so much that I had to find more about this artist and his work. BAKSTEEN was born in rotterdam, netherlands, where he attended evening classes at the art academy. in 1912 he settled in mol, belgium. mol becomes later the center of the MOLSE SCHOOL, following the successful BARBIZON SCHOOL earlier in france. the ‘school of mol’ becomes popular for their PLEIN AIR art, – besides BAKSTEEN, JACOB SMITS, PAUL MATHIEU and GASTON DE BIEMME are some of the representatives of the group. baksteen met american etching artist W.SHERWOOD who introduced him to all the secrets of the engraving technique. baksteen became member of the chicago etching society in 1924 and had an exhibit in the palais de beaux arts in bruxelles in 1935. I love the way he portrays nature in that part of europe, with its open wide fields and the simple cottages. too bad I did not know his work when I worked on ‘beauty and the beast’.

mulan findings 5

here is some more visual development artwork for disney’s MULAN. it was done sometime early 1994 before I joined the team

© disney enterprises, inc

richard williams 80th birthday

happy birthday, dick!