Category: Disney

Carl Barks on Walt Disney Treasures DVD

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date July 21, 2009

Back in 2005, Disney released a DVD as a part of their Walt Disney Treasures line called The Chronological Donald, Volume Two. This was the second of four two-disc DVD sets of the complete cannon of Donald Duck short cartoons. One of the extras on that set was called “The Art and Animation of Carl Barks” of which I was glad to be a part.

Donald_Duck

This ten minute extra focused on the work of the great Carl Barks who wrote and drew over 500 comic book stories primarily featuring the Disney ducks during the 1940s-1960s, and even wrote a few more that others illustrated later on. It was through these stories that he created characters such as Gyro Gearloose, Gladstone Gander, The Beagle Boys, and my personal all-time favorite Disney character, Scrooge McDuck.

The video was produced by the Sparkhill media company, a representative of which randomly called me one day. The conversation went something like this:

Hi, I’m from Sparkhill. I am producing an extra for an upcoming Disney DVD about Carl Barks and am looking for folks who can talk on camera about Carl. We got your name from the local comic shop in Burbank who said you buy Disney comics all the time. Would you be willing to be on our DVD?

Well, I paraphrased that, but that’s pretty much how it went down. I practically only buy Disney comics (the traditional titles of which are now no longer published in the USA), so the fellas down at House of Secrets in Burbank, CA, thought I’d be a good one to call when Sparkhill asked them if they knew of anyone. They then asked me if I knew of anyone who could talk about Carl, and right away I suggested my friend Scott Shaw! who I know had known Carl personally. After watching the video and seeing that they only had me, Scott and Jerry Beck on there, I wish I had fed them a few more names of local guys who knew and worked with Carl. I had no idea they really didn’t have much of a line-up to talk about this great man.

I am pretty much just a fan of Carl. I wrote him a few times as a kid, even making him a fun pop-up card for his 90th birthday (he mailed back a photo of him holding it). His work was probably the biggest influence upon me going to work for Disney. I fell in love with his work in my father’s old Dell comics from the 40s and 50s where they were first published, often copying various drawings as I tried to figure out how he did it. His stories were just magical – full of imagination and adventure all over the globe (and sometimes even off of it!). I even wrote a comic book story once, basing it on the series of stories Carl did of Donald’s suburban squabbles with his neighbor Jones.

Carl Barks holding the pop-up card I made for him on his 90th birthday back in the early 1990s.

This note from Carl Barks accompanied the photo he sent.

So, as much as I love Carl’s work, just know that the producers of the video didn’t consult with us to approve the final edit. If they had, I know that we would have been quick to point out that some of the art they used in various shots wasn’t Carl’s art, and some of the photos seem to zoom in on guys other than Carl who is standing off to the side, or is not even in the photos at all! I’m not sure why that happened, but it did. Even the art you see below of “Hawaiian Hideaway” was actually drawn by the great (and very living) Disney ducks storyteller, Don Rosa.

Regardless, I was flattered to be asked to be interviewed for this DVD. Carl lived to the ripe old age of 99 (passing away in 2000) and continued to be an inspiration with his many oil paintings of the ducks. No other Disney artist had a greater impact upon me than THE GREAT CARL BARKS!

Click on the image below to watch the video.

Disney Videos

Super Sleuth Disney Store Event

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date July 14, 2009

I just learned of a special event coming to Disney Stores all around the country this coming Saturday, July 18. Not that Disney needs my help in promoting this event, but I have a certain soft spot for this since I worked on the My Friends Tigger & Pooh series that airs on the Disney Channel.

Seeing this and more and more Tigger & Pooh products in stores makes me a little disappointed that they chose to cancel the third season we were busy working on last year. That’s show biz I guess.

Well, if you have little ones, maybe this will be right up their alley! Tigger, Winnie the Pooh, and a chance to be a Super Sleuth!

Click on image to see it slightly larger.

Disney Miscellaneous

The Fine Art of Marc Davis

On Thursday, May 7, I attended the opening of the Forest Lawn Museum’s wonderful new show of personal artwork by the great Marc Davis, one of Walt Disney’s famed Nine Old Men.

This is the cover of the program book for “The Fine Art of Marc Davis” exhibit featuring Marc’s 1952 oil painting “Captain Ahab’s Nightmare”.

Located high on a hill within the Forest Lawn Memorial Park (a cemetery for those of you not familiar with Los Angeles) in Glendale, California, the museum often hosts the most amazing rotating art exhibits of work by local artists. It is probably one of the best “secrets” of the LA art community having featured exhibits by animator John Pomeroy, pop artist David Willardson, a wonderful Tiki exhibit with traditional carvings from the islands as well as work done for Disney’s Tiki room and the very current artist Josh Agle better known as Shag, and even recently an exhibit of work done by and for blind folks. And it’s always free.

The striking “Dressed To Kill” painted in oil in 1950 by Marc Davis

If you are not familiar with Marc Davis’ name, you certainly are familiar with his work. As an animator at Disney, he was responsible for such characters as Flower from Bambi, Alice from Alice In Wonderland, Briar Rose and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, Tinker Bell from Peter Pan, and even Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians. And if you’ve ever visited Disneyland, you’ve seen the results of Marc’s design work in The Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, It’s a Small World, and The Jungle Cruise to name a few.

Marc Davis’ “Queequeg Pursuing Moby Dick” painted in oil in 1956, and was my personal favorite of the show.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Marc several times before his passing back in 2000. I worked for Disney Feature Animation at the time, and Marc, together with his wife and fellow Disney Legend herself, Alice, would come give talks to us at lunchtime. Marc loved to talk, and often would go off on an unplanned rabbit trail which we rarely minded as every story he had to tell was so riveting.

The art in this current exhibit is Marc’s personal work that has hung in the home he shared with Alice for many years. Made up of almost 100 pieces, the work represented is from the 1930s all the way through the 1980s. His amazing sense of design, style, color and boldness is evident in a variety of subject matter, many of which were influenced by his world travels. Pencil, oils, gouache, watercolor – you name it, there was probably a hint of every medium present in this show – even wireframe sculpture!

Chad Frye, Disney animator Andreas Deja, and retired Disney animation artist Carl Bell who can tell stories of days at the studio when Walt was still around.

The opening of a show is always fun. Good art, a little food, live music, and lots of friends and colleagues were in attendance. One might have seen illustrator William Stout, Roger Gould from Pixar, Disney animators Andreas Deja and Pres Romanillos, Mulan co-director Tony Bancroft, Frank Thomas’ (another of the Nine Old Men) son Ted, Disney guru Bill Matthews, animation folk Tom & Pat Sito, Bob Kurtz, ASIFA-Hollywood President Antran Manoogian, voice of Wendy (Peter Pan) and Alice Kathryn Beaumont, the legendary 99-year-old Tyrus Wong (Bambi conceptual artist), and even folks from Studio Ghibli in Japan.

Artist William Stout taking in Marc Davis’ 1947 oil painting “Blood and Sand”.

Animation colleagues Pres Romanillos, Bill Matthews, and Tony Bancroft.

Marc Davis’ original painting of a tree he did in the short film made for the “Disneyland” television program called “4 Artists Paint 1 Tree”.

A photo of the “4 Artists” with their version of the same tree taken in 1958. From L to R, Josh Meador, Marc Davis, Eyvind Earle, and Walt Peregoy.

Chad Frye with the legendary 99-year-old Tyrus Wong who had worked on “Bambi” back in the day, and had an amazing career later with designing cards.

Some folks checking out another of Marc Davis’ paintings.

Some women taking a look at a Marc Davis painting of some women. Profound, I know.

If you will be in the Los Angeles area between May 8 and July 26 of 2009, make this a must-stop on your list of things to-do! Please check out the details of this show at the Forest Lawn Museum’s website! And if you would like to know more about Marc Davis and the other eight of the legendary Nine Old Men, I highly recommend John Canemaker’s book published in 2001 titled Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men & the Art of Animation.

Chad Frye with Lella Smith (director of Disney’s Animation Research Library), her husband Jim, and Marc’s widow Disney Legend Alice Davis (she created the costumes for “It’s a Small World” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” among other things).

Chad About Town Disney

Pooh & the Honey Tree

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date April 19, 2009

Having worked on television projects with both Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh, I still love to draw the characters from time to time. Usually it’s for friends such as this piece I share with you today. This was a birthday card I made a few weeks ago for a friend on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday. As matriarch of her family, I thought she deserved the whole queen bee analogy.

Winnie the Pooh bringing a pot of honey to the queen bee on her birthday.

If you’d like to see other things I’ve done for the actual Disney Channel show My Friends Tigger & Pooh, click HERE.

If you’d like to see my other fan/friend sketches and cards of Pooh and the gang in a previous blog post, click HERE!

Animals Art: Watercolor Disney Illustrations

“Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” Extras!

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date April 1, 2009
1 Comment on “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” Extras!

In 2005 I was one of the first two production artists hired on to work on a brand new pre-school show for The Disney Channel called Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. After three seasons of being on the air, those of you with toddlers know exactly what I’m talking about. For the rest of you, the show is an intentionally slow paced educational program starring Mickey Mouse and the gang that primarily helps teach basic math to the little tykes. While the show is animated on the computer, fellas like me did some preproduction art in a more traditional method. My work for the actual show can be seen in the Animation section of my website.

Working on this show was a blast. For years I had doodled Mickey and his posse. In fact, when in college, I would often subliminally hide Mickey in my still life oil paintings until the teacher caught on. So to eventually get to draw Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Minnie & Daisy for a living was an unexpected blessing. Not only were those guys in the show, but I also regularly got to draw Chip & Dale, Pete, Ludwig Von Drake, Clarabelle, and one of my favorite Disney side characters – Willie the Giant (from Mickey & the Beanstalk and Mickey’s Christmas Carol).

Much like the work I did for the Disney Channel’s My Friends Tigger & Pooh, my production art consisted of drawings of the gang done in ink, then colored in Photoshop. Now and then I have cause to draw the characters for friends and fans. When I do, it usually involves a nice sketchy pencil line, and some watercolor. I thought I’d share a few drawings from the past couple of years that were done for that purpose:

Mickey and the gang from “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse”

This pencil and paint piece above was actually done for a charity auction that I organized. I had called upon many of my professional cartoonist friends to donate a piece of their art, so I felt it was only fair to also step in with a piece. This ultimately went to my pal Bill Morrison, editor and art director for Bongo Comics. (I also bought one of his pieces!)

Mickey, Donald & Goofy doing their best on a birthday cake.

This was just a birthday card I did for a friend named (if you couldn’t tell) Patty.

Mickey, Donald and Goofy who were a bit overzealous with putting out the candles on this card for the occasion of my Uncle Ken’s 70th birthday.

My Uncle Ken Frye passed away earlier this year from cancer, so this card is a fun reminder of good times with him. A big chunk of the family gathered for his 69th birthday in 2007 and treated it like it was his 70th. He surprised us all and made it well past 71 for which we were thankful. This one was inked and watercolored.

...and as an added bonus, a quick sketch of Mickey after having eaten some spicy food!

And this last piece was something I actually did for work – unofficially. I organized a crew lunch at a local chili joint in Burbank known as Chili John’s. They’ve been serving the best beef, chicken and veggie chili since the 1940s around their lunch counter. Fire-breathin’, toe-curlin’ Mickey (you won’t see THAT as an action figure anytime soon) appeared on the flyer that went out to the crew announcing the lunch.

Animals Art: Watercolor Disney

Winnie the Pooh (and Piglet too!)

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date February 15, 2009

As some of you know, I worked on the entire two season run of The Disney Channel’s pre-school show My Friends Tigger & Pooh that continues to air. I’ve even posted four pieces I did for that series on my website that you can see here:

http://chadfrye.com/Animation/Pooh1.html

The art I created for that show was certainly more in line stylistically with that of a comic book. I’d pencil and ink my pages by hand, then scan and color them in Photoshop. This method was suited for speed since I had to crank out about 17-20 drawings per week.

I like sketching the characters from time to time, and still get asked to do so by children (and sometimes their parents). However, I like the more classic look of a colored pencil line with a dash of watercolor paint, not that unlike the original Disney Pooh cartoons done back in the 1960s.

The following pieces are a few Pooh sketches I’ve done for friends and family that have never seen the light of day other than by whom they were intended. Tigger on top of Pooh is fresh off the drafting table this week! Enjoy.

pooh-piglet dr-piglet pooh-gang tigger-pooh-paint

…and just as a little bonus, here’s the rough pencil sketch drawn first before getting to the final version.

Animals Art: Watercolor Disney