Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes
Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures
- Available for pre-order on June 1, 2023. Item will ship after June 22, 2023
Preview
Book Description
Discover the lessons that helped bring about a new golden age of Disney animation!
Drawn to Life is a two volume collection of the legendary lectures from long-time Disney animator Walt Stanchfield. For over twenty years, Walt helped breathe life into the new golden age of animation with these teachings at the Walt Disney Animation Studios and influenced such talented artists as Tim Burton, Brad Bird, Glen Keane, and John Lasseter. These writings represent the quintessential refresher for fine artists and film professionals, and it is a vital tutorial for students who are now poised to be part of another new generation in the art form.
Written by Walt Stanchfield (1919-2000), who began work for the Walt Disney Studios in the 1950s. His work can be seen in films like Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book, 101 Dalmatians, and Peter Pan.
Edited by Academy Award®-nominated producer Don Hahn, who has prduced such classic Disney films as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Basics
1. Enthusiasm
2. 2 Principles of Animation
3. Consider Anatomy Alone
4. Anatomy Continued
5. Consider Weight
6. Squash and Stretch — I
7. Squash and Stretch — II
8. Stretch and Squash — III
9. Line and Silhouette
10. Basic Shapes versus Details
11. Using Basic Shapes as Aid in Diffi cult Drawings
12. Simplify Where Possible
13. Straights and Curves
14. Overlap, Follow-through, and Drag
15. Eyes
16. Avoiding Tangent Lines
17. Some Simple Rules of Perspective
18. Some Ways to Create Space and Depth
19. Some Principles of Drawing
20. Great Performance or Just a Drawing?
21. Drawing Calories
22. Sketching
23. Animation and Sketching
24. Simplicity for the Sake of Clarity
25. Construction Observations Useful in Animation
26. The Opposing Force
Gesture
27. Anatomy vs. Gesture
28. Mental and Physical Preparation
29. Dividing the Body into Units
30. Dimensional Drawing
31. The Value of an Action/Gesture Analysis Study
32. Using a Simple (But Logical) Approach to Drapery
33. Drapery — Its Role in Drawing
34. The Seriousness of Head Sketching/A New Phrase: " Body Syntax "
35. The Head in Gesture
36. From the Living Model to the Living Gesture
37. A Little More on Heads
38. Feeling the Pose
39. The Pose Is an Extreme
40. Pose and Mood
41. Pose and Mood Plus Timing and Phrasing and Texture
42. Symbols for Poses
43. Positive and Negative
44. Silhouette
45. P.S. The Metaphysical Side
46. Draw Verbs Not Nouns
47. Osmosis
48. Drawing and Caricature
Seeing
49. What Not to See
50. A Bit of Introspection
51. It Ain’t Easy
52. A Good First Impression
53. Stick to the Theme
54. Sometimes I Wonder Why I Spend the Lonely Hours …
55. Cleanup — General
56. Cleanup
57. Inbetweening
58. Problems with Drawing in Line
59. Superficial Appearance vs. Creative Portrayal
60. Creative Energy
61. More Meanderings
62. Those Who Cannot Begin Do Not Finish
63. Body Language
64. Note Taking and Sketching
65. Using the Rules of Perspective
66. Applying the Rules of Perspective
67. Copy the Model … Who Me?
68. Talk to Your Audience — Through Drawing
69. Getting at the Root of the Problem
70. Doodling vs. Drawing
71. Purpose in Drawing
72. When Acting (Drawing) is an Art
Analysis
73. Action Analysis Class I
74. Action Analysis Class II
75. Using Cylinders
76. Action Analysis — Hands and Feet
77. Angles, Angles, Angles
78. Using Angles
79. Angles and Tension
80. Applying Angles and Tension in Our Drawings
81. Tennis, Angles, and Essences
82. More on the Same
83. More on "Essence" Drawing
84. Driving Force Behind the Action
85. A Drawing Style Appropriate for Animation
86. A Drawing Style for Animation, Part II
87. Learn to Cheat
88. One Picture Worth A Thousand Words?
89. Double Vision
90. Lazy Lines
91. Spot It for Yourself
92. Do You Promise to Draw the Action, The Whole Action,
and Nothing But the Action?
93. The Pose — A One-Drawing Story
94. My Eye Is in Love
95. Become the Director
96. Hone Up or Bone Up
97. The Illustrated Handout
Creativity
98. Drawing on the Artist Within
99. Fine Tuning the Gesture
100. For a Better Gesture, Adverbs
101. Omni — on Creativity
102. Metamorphosis
103. Mime
104. True Gesture Drawing
105. A Second Chance to Make a First Impression
106. A Good Sketch Is Like a Good Joke
107. Opposition
108. Elastic Band Tension
109. Get Out of the Way
110. Play-Acting
111. A Storytelling Drawing
112. Drawing Techniques
113. Step Into It
114. It Could Be That …
115. A First Impression — Your Intended Goal
116. Gallery of Class Drawings
117. Think First …
118. Piles of Nuts
119. A Meaningful Assembly
120. The Time has Come, The Walrus Said …
121. Clarity
122. Action or Reaction?
Thinking
123. Be Transformed
124. Be Relentless
125. Adjust Your Crystal
126. A Love for Drawing
127. A New Slant on Drawing
128. Think Gesture
129. Precious Instruments
130. Gesture Drawing, Enthusiasm, and Stuff Like That
131. Shape — A Multi-Form Drawing Tool
132. Deciphering and Defi ning Gestures
133. The Decisive Moment
134. Relationship of Character to Prop
135. Drawing
136. Words That Help in Drawing
137. A Simple Approach to Drawing
138. Vocalizing
139. Abstracting the Essence
140. Common vs. Uncommon Gestures
141. A Thinking Person’s Art
142. Lines, Lines, Lines
143. Feel, as Well as See, the Gesture
144. Savvy Sayin’s
145. The Inner Force
146. The Power of " mmm "
147. Gestural Symbolism
148. Some Left Over Thoughts
149. The Right Way?
Afterword/Bonus Material
Credits
Author(s)
Biography
Don Hahn produced some of the most successful animated films of all time, including Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar®. Three of his films, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. are now on the Library of Congress collection as culturally, historically and esthetically significant.
Don’s films include Disney’s Maleficent, Frankenweenie, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Atlantis, and Emperor’s New Groove. He was a founder and executive producer of the acclaimed Disneynature Films, executive produced the PBS American Masters documentary Tyrus about Disney Legend Tyrus Wong, and has directed the acclaimed documentaries Waking Sleeping Beauty, and Howard featured on Disney+.
He has authored many books on animation, guest lectures at Microsoft, Deloitte, Apple, and is on the advisory board of the Walt Disney Family Museum and a former trustee of PBS SoCal. He holds two Academy Award nominations, two Emmy nominations, two Golden Globes for Best Picture, two Honorary Doctorate degrees, and in 2022 he was named a Disney Legend for his extraordinary contributions to The Walt Disney Company.
Reviews
For nearly thirty years, the artists that passed through the gates of Disney Animation, and even non-artists like myself, were influenced by the craft, skill, wisdom, writings and sketches of Walt Stanchfield.
— Roy Disney
Walt was a kind of Mark Twain for us at Disney. He always taught with humor and skill. You learned to see the world through his eyes. I remember him one day encouraging us to leap into our drawings with boldness and confidence, " Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us so the sooner you get them out the better! " Sitting in Walt’s class was as much a psychology course as it was a drawing class. One couldn’t help walk away with your mind and soul a little more open than when you entered.
— Glen Keane, Walt Disney Animation Studios
Walt Stanchfield’s classes and writings were little distillations of the man: quirky, strongly stated in a genial voice, and brimming with a lifetime of sharp observations about story telling and graphic communication. Whether he drew with a ball point pen or painted with a brush dipped in his coffee cup, he got to the essence of things and was eager to share what he learned with his eager disciples, myself among them. He was grizzled and he was great and proof that there was more than one Walt at the Disney Studio that could inspire a legion of artists.
— John Musker, Walt Disney Animation Studios
Walt Stanchfield was one of Disney Animation’s national treasures. His classes and notes have inspired countless animation artists, and his approach to drawing of caricature over reality, feeling over rote accuracy, and communication over photographic reproduction gets to the heart of what great animation is all about. Huzzah to Don Hahn for putting it all together for us!
— Eric Goldberg, Walt Disney Animation Studios
During the Animation Renaissance of the 1990s, one of the Walt Disney Studio’s best kept secrets was Walt Stanchfield. Once a week after work, this aged but agile figure jumped from drawing board to drawing board, patiently teaching us the principles behind the high baroque style of Walt Disney Animation drawing. Being in a room with Walt made you feel what it must have been like to have been taught by Don Graham. Having one of your life drawings be good enough to be reproduced in one of his little homemade weekly bulletins was akin to getting a Distinguished Service medal! Senior animators vied with trainees for that distinction.
— Tom Sito, Animator/Filmmaker/Author of Drawing The Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson
This exciting collection of master classes by the great teacher Walt Stanchfield is destined to become a classic on the order of Kimon Nicolaides ’ exploration of the drawing process. Stanchfield (1919 – 2000) inspired several generations of Disney animators and those of us outside the studio fortunate enough to happen upon dog-eared copies of his conversational notes, which we passed around like Leonardo’s Codex Leicester. Stanchfield beautifully communicates the essence and joy of expressing ideas through the graphic line and accumulating a visual vocabulary. Drawn to Life is a treasure trove of cogent, valuable information for students, teachers and anyone who loves to draw.
— John Canemaker, NYU professor and Academy Award ® -winning animation filmmaker
Walt Stanchfield, in his own unique way, taught so many of us about drawing, caricature, motion, acting, and animation. Most important to me was how Walt made you apply what you had observed in his life drawing class to your animation. Disney Animation is based on real life, and in that regard Walt Stanchfield’s philosophy echoed Walt Disney’s: " We cannot caricature and animate anything convincingly until we study the real thing first. "
— Andreas Deja, Walt Disney Animation Studios
Walt Stanchfield’s renewed emphasis on draftsmanship at the Disney Studios transformed the seemingly moribund art of animation. His students were part of a renaissance with The Little Mermaid and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a renaissance that continues with films ranging from The Iron Giant to Lilo and Stitch to Wall-E.
— Charles Solomon, Animation Historian