Here is series of under paintings executed in acrylic.

Yes, this is the cover of a sketchbook.

Book-1-a.jpg

To give the paint a good surface to grab onto I applies a couple layers of gesso to the area to be painted.

Then I paint the areas with complimentary colors - reds for the trees and leaves and blur for the path, the hut and the character.

Book-2-a.jpg

I add some earth tones to the blue area…

Book-3-a.jpg

Book-4-a.jpg

Next the greens…and I begin to block in the character…

Book-5-a.jpg

Here is the final with added details and the character in color.

Because of the winding path I used several horizon lines.

There you have it!

Again with the artwork!

The view from Tybee Pier looking north - I love clouds

Here is an 8 in. x 10 in. beach painting. The people were fun- the gal in front/bottom has a yellow bikini on…

These are some of my latest works…paintings and drawings.

This is an 12 in. x 16 in. painitng in oil of Tricia’s bouquet

The opportunity to paint something more delicate came with this bouquet of flowers for my wife. Gee, I wonder if I can write this off as a business expense?

The under paint is in complimentary colors.

Opps, almost forgot this one an 18 in. by 24 in.

Here is another paintng. I began with an orange underpaint…because I knew I would be using several hues of blue in the final. The shell is a real conch shell that I found on the beach at Tybee Island.

Some development for another project about American Football

This drawing began with some thumbnails (in the upper right-hand portion of the page)…and grew from there. I am bringing back a version on my “Tony” character for this project. The character is the most unathletic looking character on the face of the planet! Perfect for a kicker!

This week has been dedicated to painting…and some real progress has been made with two paintings finished this week…so far.
With that said, I have been receiving a bunch emails about character design and construction.

With character design one of the most important elements is PLAY.

Ward Kimball once told me he did about 300 designs to get Jimminy Cricket…The character began very much as an insect and worked it’s way to the little dude with the tophat.

Here is a drawing with non descript characters - just playing around with some structure

Here are few fun sketches I found as I was going through some drawings…these are play sketches with no particular purpose in mind except to just play with some character ideas.

Here are a few lady characters

For me this is the most fun part of designing characters….

I had to make up a folder about online lessons and a few minutes later this guy was on my board

These kinds of drawings are usually drawn in sketchbooks while at the local cafe.

Remember to keep it fun and PLAY …do tons of drawings!!!

Squash McStretch celebrates his 11th birthday, September 5th

Happy Birthday Squash McStretch!

Eleven years ago today , Squash made his debut at the Disneyanna Convention in Orlando. I created him as an “educational character” for the Disney Institute. He was used in classes by Animation, Photography, TV, Culinary and Gardening around the Institute (now Saratoga Springs).

On September 5th, we decided to roll him out with his image on cels in our programs. One of our programs was a primer where participants would tour the four studios (preproduction, 2D animation, 3D animation and stop motion) while they learned about the animation process and then return to paint by hand a cel of Squash Mc Stretch. They went home with their cel, their paints and brushes.

Meanwhile at the Disneyanna convention, we taught versions of the animation classes and drew for the attendees.
A table was set up and I spent most of two days drawing Squash for folks - at times the lines were out the door.
Prior to the convention, Squash was run by the Legal department in Los Angeles and was deemed a “legal” Disney Character.

Squash, an Irish-American character, grew in stature. We placed him on our animation jackets, made pins, maquettes, three series of cels, used animation of him for special presentations, model sheets, handouts, named a conference room after him, had Squash images with room numbers on our offices and immortalized him in cement in a backstage area. In fact, a few months ago, someone drew a Squash cartoon on an open drawing pad in the activity room at Saratoga Springs (former site of the Institute’s animation studios).

As mentioned in an earlier post, Squash died off after I left the Institute.

At the moment, Squash is enjoying himself, living in a relaxed limbo on an island off the Georgia coast.

Happy Birthday Squash - you haven’t aged a day!

This video of Ward with Tom Snyder says a great deal about Ward and his passion for his family, his art and his trains. Ward never seemed to do anything halfway.

When I re-entered Art Center, a friend of mine James “Bud” Proctor sent me a package- an animation drawing table, my first. Bud never did anything halfway either…one afternoon a 70 pound crate arrived with the “table”. Bud had created a solid wood crate and packed the table inside it. The table was constructed from heavy sheet metal and featured 4 or 5 - 36 inch florescent tubes. There were three places for heavy 3 pronged plugs and a special fuse system built into the inside of the table. The table was made so a double pegged inking board could be inset to be flush with the table’s top surface. Two heavy metal braces cut to 45 degrees fit into the bottom of the device. It was, to say the least, an enormous state of the art piece tabletop of animation equipment.

Bud and I had met in a filmmaking class while I was stationed at Fort Myer in Virginia.

When I told him about Kimball, Bud came out for a visit. With him he brought his super 8mm Beaulieu camera. It was a wonderful movie camera and was as close to 16mm film as our budget would allow.

We decided we had to make a film about Ward Kimball and his trains. I spoke to Ward about it and he was more than happy to oblige. So…we were about to make a film about Ward and his trains!!!

We picked a day between my 2nd and 3rd terms and we paid a visit to Ward’s house. He lived in San Gabriel and his house was easy to spot…there was a full sized boxcar resting on a side rail on the front lawn – in fact, the film began with those first images. The camera cruised down a normal neighborhood street and it did a “down take” when it reached the boxcar at Kimball’s house.

Next, we cut to the boxcar’s door…which slid back - a fully dressed conductor with a white shock of hair and perfectly round glasses peered out in all directions and then leaped down out of the boxcar doorway 4 or 5 feet to the ground. Keep in mind at the time, Ward was somewhere about 65 years old…he landed perfectly and we were ready for the next scene. We were also very grateful that Ward had not damaged himself. It was then that Ward came up to us and exclaimed, “I can do it better”.

Six takes later, Ward was completely satisfied with his performance – all the while I kept thinking, “I am going be known as the guy who killed Ward Kimball!”

And so, the rest of the day proceeded just as before. We would suggest and film an action or shot and then Ward would have an idea on how to improve it. After a few scenes, we realized that Ward was now the director of this movie…and that was fine with us.

We shot footage of him as a conductor with his train station. We shot footage of him in his gray pin striped hat, overalls and red kerchief as an engineer and used it as a transition to move inside to his train collection. He had two rooms in his collection with American trains and one with European trains (with electrical currents to match both rooms). The trains he collected ranged from approximately 1875 to 1945.

With the camera’s close up lens we could get right down at track level to catch the action of the model trains. We did shoot some excellent footage in both rooms.

At the end of the day, we had Ward Kimball, his Grizzley Flats railroad and his toy train collection “in the can”.

When the super 8 film came back from the lab, I couldn’t wait to edit it. I did a cut of the film and sent it to Bud. Bud polished it up and added sound and effects and music to our footage. Our little project came out great! We captured prime Ward Kimball on film doing his train thing!

Unfortunately, over the years the film has vanished! I don’t know if Bud has it or Ward had it or if I had it. We kind of passed it around. In fact, I have lost track of James “Bud” Proctor. Jr. from Falls Church, Virginia and I don’t know where he is now.

If anyone finds him- please let me know. If I ever find that film again- I will post it on the internet.

Great memories of that day with Ward and Bud…

I may write more about Ward another time…

Still Animated!