How to Train an Animator

In 1935, Walt Disney wrote an eight page memo to art teacher Don Graham outlining his ideas for how to train an animator.

Rico Lebrun works with Eric Larson as he draws a live deer in preparation for Bambi from Eye-Likey

It's a snapshot of what Disney was thinking about the art of animation during those formative years just before Snow White and Pinocchio, and it offers some ideas that might inspire current art teachers. Here are some exerpts:

"I have often wondered why, in your life drawing class, you don't have your men look at the model and draw a caricature of the model, rather than an actual sketch. But instruct them to draw the caricature in good form, basing it on the actual model."

"In [drawing the model] lifting, for example - or other actions - we should drive at the fundamentals of the animation, and at the same time, incorporate the caricature. When someone is lifting a heavy weight, what do you feel? Do you feel that something is liable to crack at any minute and drop down? Do you feel that because of the pressure he's got, he's going to blow up, that his face is going to turn purple, that his eyes are going to bulge out of their sockets?"

Disney observed that young animators often dwelled on the individual parts of the body that they were animating instead of the expression of the overall pose. To better understand expressive poses, he suggested setting up a translucent screen with the model behind the screen, seen only by the shadow silhouette cast by a spotlight behind, which was in fact an old parlor game.

He goes on to suggest ideas for teaching about the components of facial expression, staging, music, dialog, and the understanding of what drives the movement of the figure. "The driving force behind the action is the mood, the personality, the attitude of the character - or all three. Therefore the mind is the pilot."


In this video, Disney talks about how his in-studio training program went beyond the static poses that were taught in typical art schools by focusing on the flow of movement, action, and reaction. (link to video).

Walt's interest in an in-house studio was initially inspired by animator Art Babbit, who brought his fellow artists to his home to do figure drawing. Here's more about Art Babbit's role in animation education at Disney in the 1930s.

Artist Rico Lebrun was brought into the program later in the 1930s, primarily to help with Bambi. Read about his Disney art classes here.

Further reading
Online:
Full text of Disney's letter to Don Graham
Books:
The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures
The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams (great book by Roger Rabbit's animation supervisor, who learned a lot from Art Babbitt and other classic animators).

Plane Heads

Art teachers have proposed various schemes for simplifying the head into an arrangement of flat planes. Here are two plane breakdowns by Andrew Loomis, author of Figure Drawing for All It's Worth and Drawing the Head and Hands. 

The one on the left is a simple breakdown, with front, side, and bottom planes. The one on the right subdivides the planes further. To be precise, some of these "planes" aren't perfect planes in the geometric sense, such as the curving planes on the top of the cranium.

Fred Fixler, a student of famed Art Students League instructor Frank Reilly, came up with a slightly different plane breakdown for an idealized male head. There are some rounded forms too. The cranium is a ball with the sides sliced off. 

Sculpting the plane head brings the plane analysis into the realm of reality. This one is by painter and teacher John Asaro, who has a website called "Planes of the Head." He has taught head painting using his plane head. 

Many academic instructors have used plane heads as models before going to the live human, because it's much easier to accurately judge the values and color notes of each plane, compared to the infinitely variegated tones and curving forms of a real face. 

Drawing and painting from plane heads is a central part of Chinese and Russian academic practice, and various companies have resurrected some of these art school models, such as this 21-Inch plaster head.

This mini plaster head is very different from a European or American standard head, and the planes are broken down into a mosaic of small forms. But the ear is treated as a single plane.

People will debate the merits of these commercially available heads, but I've never been completely satisfied with any of them. I think it's a great exercise for any student to come up with their own analysis, and that's what I did when I was in art school. Before I knew about Sculpey, I made this the hard way, sculpting a plastilina original, and then making a two-piece mold and casting it in plaster. Mine was inspired mainly by Loomis and George Bridgman.

I have set up my little plane head and painted him in colored light.

Once a student has had practice drawing and painting from idealized plane heads, and even sculpting their own breakdowns, then I think the next best step is to look at real human models and break the planes down in a unique way for that individual model. 

This was the method taught in a seminar I took from Art Center instructor Paul Souza, and here's an exercise I did in that class, scumbling white oil paint over chip board sealed with shellac.


In truth, there is no single ideal plane head, and even an individual model's face can be analyzed in various ways.

Dennis Nolan and the Hartford Art School

Yesterday I visited the Hartford Art School in Connecticut, part of the University of Hartford, to give a lecture about picture making and world building.

After the talk, a group of about 50 students invited me to do a watercolor demo. I had a great model, someone I've painted many times before: my good friend Dennis Nolan, professor of illustration and noted children's book illustrator. 

Since I only had a half hour, I used the most direct method I know for portraits, starting with big shapes of watercolor laid on wet with a big brush, and then finishing with a few details and textures with water-soluble colored pencils, drybrush watercolor, and a few touches of gouache.

Here's Dennis afterward with his daughter Evie, a student at Hartford. The painting is in a Moleskine water media notebook, using a Schmincke watercolor set.

If you're a high school student interested in studying illustration, I recommend the program at Hartford. It's led by not only Dennis Nolan, but also Bill Thomson, and Doug Anderson. The school also has a very interesting class on the science of art taught by Jeremiah Patterson. The illustration program is strong in observational drawing and painting as well as composition and imaginative realism, and the seniors create their own children's picture book from start to finish. They also recently added an animation component to the curriculum. The illustration program is very popular; this year they have the largest sophomore enrollment ever.
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Dennis Nolan's faculty page at Hartford Art School
Previous post on the Hartford Art School

Dinosaur illustration assignment at MICA

Daniel Iturralde painting a dinosaur in Patrick O'Brien's class at MICA

Patrick O'Brien, who teaches illustration at the Maryland Institute of Art (MICA), came up with an assignment for his digital and oil-painting students. The goal was to paint a dinosaur in a convincing environment using the process outlined in my books and videos.

The classes began by watching my DVD "How I Paint Dinosaurs" and reading my books Color and Light and Imaginative Realism.

Patrick brought in some of his own dinosaur maquettes, and the students sketched them from various angles as they developed compositional ideas in thumbnail form.

Once they decided on their compositions, they photographed the maquettes and gathered images of background environments.


Then they drew comprehensive layouts of their compositions based on their references, before going to finish. Both Patrick's oil-painting students and his digital students followed the same basic process.

Julianne Ostrander portrayed her Stegosaurus on a high ridge with a dramatic view down to a lake. She captured the reflected light of the sun bouncing off the near dorsal plates to the far plates.

Niki Sauter created this digital image of a dinosaur prowling through a moody atmospheric landscape. Kudos to all the students, and thanks to Patrick for working with my books and vids!

If you're an art teacher, and you want to use my books or videos in your class, please send me some photos and I'll try to feature them on the blog. Also if you order a classroom set of my books, I can do dino drawings in them and personalize them with the student's names.
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More about Patrick O'Brien
Previously: Painting demo at MICA

Do artists need to learn non-computer skills?

D. Peters asked: "Ok, random question. A bunch of art teachers are debating whether or not learning how to use a ruler and how to draw things to scale is still a needed skill for today's artists. Some argue that with technology, we no longer have the need to learn how to scale up or down by hand. Others say that even with the technology, there is still a need for artists to learn how to draw and shape to scale by hand. Opinion?"

Jeanette in my basement studio, which I occupied 1985-1991

My answer: I feel nearly all practical skills are worth learning, even if a computer can do them more efficiently. The more skills you master, the stronger you are as a person and as an artist. Consider, by way of example, the skill of mental arithmetic. If you can accurately add a column of numbers in your head, you will use the skill all the time, even though that function is readily mechanized by calculators.

I suppose teachers of art rightly worry about which skills are more worth teaching than others, given the limited time they have to prepare a group of graduates for the real demands of a job marketplace. Most art teachers I've asked about this question have told me that both traditional skills (such as perspective) and computer skills (such as Google Sketchup) are worth learning, but the problem is the limited class time available to teach it all. Many digital animation studios want animators who have some training in hand-drawn or stop motion animation because it gives their digital work more grounding.

The path of learning is different when you are teaching yourself. You will teach yourself whatever skills you need to match the demands of a given project. Project-based self-teaching is fueled entirely by your personal obsessions. It may lead you to a rare mastery of a forgotten art, such as ornamental glass art. 

In this new Internet economy, the people who succeed are those who—lured by the happy demons of curiosity—learn a suite of skills, including both digital and traditional skills, that makes them different from anyone else, and thus indispensable to society. And because we're human, we might wish to learn skills that have no immediate practical value whatsoever, such as juggling, piano playing, wood engraving, or knitting. 

Such learning, I believe, is at the core of Adam Savage's Ten Rules for Success.

WPI Game Development

On Thursday I visited the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts as a guest of the department of Interactive Media and Game Development (IMGD), where I gave a  lecture on Worldbuilding.

The IMGD program at WPI is designed to provide students with both programming expertise and art knowledge so that they're well rounded in their approach to interactive design.

One of the professors is Britt Snyder (left, with a Jordu Schell sculpt between us). Britt has worked as an artist in the field of video game development for the past 13 years, with clients like SONY, Blizzard, Liquid Entertainment, Rockstar, THQ, and many others.
He teaches 3D modeling, digital painting, and concept art.

WPI was one of the first to develop a program in game design, and is one of the top-ranked academic programs in the field. Since the department is part of a larger engineering school, there's always a focus on blending art and technology, with an eye on fostering close working relationships between artists and programmers.

Students get to jump right in and participate in hands-on projects and collaborations, creating games, virtual environments, interactive fiction, art installations, collaborative performances. They are encouraged to invent entirely new forms of media.

I was thrilled to be invited by PhD candidate Jia Wang to try out the virtual reality mo-cap lab, dubbed "Phase Space."

I am wearing a stereoscopic head-mounted display and holding a tracking constellation (basically a souped up Wii controller with very precise tracking points). 

The myriad sensors mounted on the outer frame follow  the exact 3D movements of my head and hand-held wand, turning me into a St. George with a sword facing off against a dragon, or whatever. 

Small fans mounted on the outer frame can generate the effect of wind, so that the player can feel completely immersed in a virtual environment.

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WPI Interactive Media and Game Development

New Hampshire Institute of Art

On Wednesday I visited New Hampshire Institute of Art for a demo and lecture. The school occupies 12 historic buildings in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire. 

NHIA offers BFA programs in Ceramics, Painting, Photography, Interdisciplinary Arts, Arts Education, Graphic Design, and Illustration. 

There are 170 illustration majors out of a student body of 540. The Illustration faculty includes (from left to right) Ryan O'Rourke, Leigh Guldig, Jerry LoFaro, Kristina Carroll, me, Natalya Zahn, Jim Burke, and Doug Sirois. Follow the links to see their work on their personal websites. 

Kristina Carroll teaches courses on Science Fiction/ Fantasy and Worldbuilding. Above are some samples of student work. Kristina says: "Good technique is the foundation of all illustration, and concept is the heart of it. Regardless of style or subject matter, by learning the tried and true methods of the old masters and developing a strong process, students will acquire the tools to develop share their ideas clearly."

Speaking of tools, one student named Daniel showed me the sketching box he improvised. He hot-glued watercolor half pans onto the inside of the lid at far right, and mixed the paint on the inside surface. Smart idea! Who needs to buy those expensive watercolor sets?

NHIA is also hosting a small show of 25 original Dinotopia artworks, including "Dinosaur Parade" (above, frame by Troy Stafford), "Garden of Hope," "Dinosaur Boulevard," "Small Wonder," "Up High," and "Waterfall City." There are also a few preliminary sketches and reference maquettes. The show, organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum, contains a completely different set of artwork from the recent show in Connecticut. The NHIA museum is located at 77 Amherst Street and will be up through March 13.

Wikipedia on NHIA

NHIA official website

Dinotopia exhibition at NHIA

Lines and Colors announcement of the show, with closeups of Dinosaur Parade

Gamut Mapping at MICA

Many painting teachers have been using Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter as a textbook in the classroom. Patrick O'Brien, who teaches painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art, described the lesson he taught out of the book:

We experimented with your method of gamut masking and mixing color strings. We used pages 123-131 in Color and Light, and also referenced pages 106-107 and 116-117.
For the exercise I brought in some simple photographs for them to copy, because I wanted to take the drawing element out of it, so they could concentrate on the color scheme. On the morning of class I went to the MICA library to find a color wheel to use. 

 In flipping through all the books about color, I could not find a single good color wheel that went to grey in the center. So we had to use the small color wheel in your book on page 75. We used index cards and tape to make the masks. As you can see, some students' first instinct was to photograph it with their phone and bring it back to their seat.  

 I had each student draw the subject twice. We did one small painting in one color gamut, and then their homework is to do another painting of the same scene in the other gamut. Pretty much exactly what you did in your video with the CircusCircus sign. 

 And now I've been inspired to incorporate these ideas into my own painting as well. I'm working on a New York 1940s maritime scene that would be perfect for a cool gamut.

Thanks for the great ideas! ---Patrick O'Brien, MICA

If other instructors are doing class projects based on ideas in Color and Light, please send me photos and a description, and I’ll try to share them on the blog.

And if you want to use Color and Light as your course guide, please let me know. At our little web store, we can offer you discounts on group orders, and I can sign them for each of your students.

MORE INFO:
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter signed from my web store
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter on Amazon
All photos by Patrick O'Brien
Previously on GJ:
My painting demo for Patrick's class at MICA 
Jason Dowd's use of C&L at LCAD

Video on Gamut Mapping

The Yurmby Wheel

The Perfect Art School

The editor of American Artist magazine recently asked a group of artists, teachers, and administrators to describe "The Perfect Art School." The new September issue publishes the answers. 

Here's my answer: "The perfect art school would nurture skill but not ostentation, knowledge but not dogma, and tradition but not conventionalism."

American Artist September 2012 issue

Max Ginsburg workshop this September

Max Ginsburg will be teaching a three day workshop at Garin Baker's Carriage House Art Studio's "Visiting Artist Series this September 7-9. The studio is located in the Lower Hudson Valley of New York State. The workshop will focus on composing scenes with multiple figures.  

Enrollment will be limited to 15. Max will give individual critiques and studio time with live models. Garin's atelier is a congenial place to be during the work sessions and during the off-time, when students can bond around good food and conversation. There are rooms in Garin's historic house to accommodate some of the students.

Max and Garin have asked me to come by for an evening to talk a little about multiple figure composition. 

For more information: 

Carriage House Art Studio's Visiting Artist Series

Garin Baker's Blog

Max Ginsburg's website

By the way, Garin and his studio are featured on the cover of the current issue of American Artist Workshop magazine.

Survival Guide for Art Students

I met with the editors of Dover Publishing a while ago. They publish a lot of classic books on art instruction from days of yore. I told them that most of what I know about drawing and painting comes from studying their books. They asked me for a list of the ten art instruction books that I thought were most useful, with a blurb about why I love each one.

They just put this recommended list in their catalog, so here it is: "James Gurney's Survival Guide for Art Students."

 

Bridgman's Life Drawing by George Bridgman

Bridgman's legendary figure drawing demonstrations at the Art Students League of New York have inspired generations of artists, from Norman Rockwell to Frank Frazetta. His dynamic, chunky form analysis reminds students of the big shapes and how they interlock with each other, which is easy to overlook when faced with the subtleties of the actual figure. 

The Human Figure by John Vanderpoel

John Vanderpoel, who studied in France at the Académie Julian, offers a classical approach to figure drawing, noteworthy for its timeless grace. His approach focuses on the important planes of the figure understood in terms of simple light and shade. Male and female models are analyzed in many detailed drawings of parts, such as the head, neck, torso, and limbs. The plates are so good that it would profit a student to systematically copy all of them.

The Practice and Science of Drawing

Harold Speed's classic text bridges the often-difficult gap between drawing and painting. He starts with a tutorial on seeing, the foundation of accurate drawing. He distinguishes between line drawing and what he calls 'mass drawing'—essentially monochrome painting. Although his writing style might strike some modern readers as old fashioned and opinionated, he makes a good case and covers useful aesthetic territory.

Oil Painting Techniques and Materials by Harold Speed

Speed's book on painting builds on his drawing book, offering painting instruction as it was practiced in the Royal Academy. Although not everyone will agree with his views on modern art, his advice on tone, color, and edges is concise and inspiring, and his analysis of the old masters benefits from the insights of a skilled practitioner.

Perspective Made Easy by Ernest Norling

Perspective can be a daunting topic, like advanced mathematics, but in its most basic form, it is easy to grasp. Norling does a good job of emphasizing the most fundamental points, especially the all-important subject of eye level. He concentrates on the familiar problems faced by most artists, such as one-, two-, and three-point perspective.

At Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists by Ellenberger

This is a useful reference book, dominated by large and carefully drawn plates. The animal kingdom is represented by a small number of familiar domesticated mammals: horse, dog, cow, and goat, together with a lion. Each animal is shown in neutral poses in side, top, and front views, with skeletal and muscular dissections for comparison.

The Art of Animal Drawing: Construction, Action Analysis, Caricature (Dover Art Instruction)

Disney animator Ken Hultgren shares an approach to drawing animals that emphasizes the unique characteristics of all the major types of mammals. His style features action poses ranging from straight to cartoony. His pen-and-ink drawings are usually accompanied by a skeletal analysis to help students see the hidden structure. He never loses sight of the lines of action flowing through a pose, something that both realist painters and cartoonists can benefit from.

The Artistic Anatomy of Trees

This book is a good one to consult when one needs a reminder that not all trees look the same. Cole draws upon the Victorian tradition of close observation of nature, and he analyzes trees at the level of roots, branches, stems, blossoms, leaves, and foliage masses. The book transcends the limits of a botanical treatise by exploring artistic issues, such as the grouping of masses and the simplification of contours. The text is profusely illustrated with black-and-white explanatory drawings, as well as compositions by early masters.

Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting

John Carlson, himself a noted American Impressionist painter and teacher, addresses all the common elements faced by landscape painters, including design, light, perspective, color, clouds, trees, and composition. While the book was first published in 1929, Dover has reprinted the 1958 edition, so the language is a little more accessible to the modern reader without sacrificing Carlson's forthright style. Although the 58 diagrams are in black and white, the book's chief value is its practical principles and insights.

Modelling and Sculpting the Human Figure by Edouard Lanteri

This classic text from an associate of Rodin guides the sculptor through the theory and practice needed to successfully interpret the figure in three dimensions. It covers basic technique, materials, and anatomy. Although the text is extensive and old fashioned, it provides a rare window into the working methods and thought processes that led to some of the greatest masterpieces of figural sculpture.

Here's the list again in no particular order. The titles are linked to Amazon pages:

1. Bridgman's Life Drawing by George Bridgman

2. The Human Figure by John Vanderpoel

3. The Practice and Science of Drawing

4. Oil Painting Techniques and Materials by Harold Speed

5. Perspective Made Easy by Ernest Norling

6. At Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists by Ellenberger

7. The Art of Animal Drawing: Construction, Action Analysis, Caricature (Dover Art Instruction)

8. The Artistic Anatomy of Trees

9. Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting

10. Modelling and Sculpting the Human Figure by Edouard Lanteri

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I'd be interested in your experience with old books on art instruction (say, 50 years old or more). What do you like or dislike about them? Do you have some favorite old-time art instruction books that I overlooked? Let me know in the comments. Later in the week I'll do a poll and compile a crowd-sourced list.

 Dover Publishing website: "James Gurney's Survival Guide for Art Students"