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Around two thousand pieces of animation art and ephemera will be sold at auction in June.

The post Animation Art Auction Wars: Bonhams, Heritage, Van Eaton Holding Back-to-Back-to-Back Auctions appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Hokey dokey.  Too much stuff here to cover very well, but try we shall.  Hold on to your hats, folks!  It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

First off, you know how I was talking the other day about constructing the ideal educator website of children’s literature resources?  Well, this might have to be one of said resources I’d include.  Called Uncover the Past, the site is dedicated to “helping library and education professionals teach history through children’s literature!”  The booklists are particularly interesting.
Thanks to Rebecca Redinger for the link.

Next up, one for the “how cute is this?” files.  I don’t know why the idea of Mary Blair tableware isn’t commonplace, but so far this is the first place I’ve seen it done properly.  Blair, as you may recall, worked as a Disney animator for years before becoming a children’s book illustrator.Take the survey and you might win a set of your very own.

Mmm.  Process.  Sweet, delicious process.  What’s better than watching an Art Director explain how they came up with a YA cover?  Watching an Art Director explain how they came up with a YA cover after considering LOADS of alternatives.  Chad Beckerman shows us how The Haters came to be.  I don’t usually do YA, but in this special case I am making an exception.  You bet I am.

Oo.  Auction. Now normally one wouldn’t have the money for such a thing, but this one’s special.  What we’re talking about here is a Refugee Benefit Auction, created by authors Shannon Hale and Mette Ivie Harrison.  100% of the proceeds go to Lifting Hands International, a charity that gets life-saving supplies directly to refugee camps.  As for the things you could get, they’re pretty fantastic.  My personal favorite?  A pole dance (or fan dance, they’re easy) performed by Shannon Hale and Daniel Handler.  “Negligible nudity assured”.  Oddly, this item has yet to secure an initial bid.  Would someone like to lend me $10,000?

The Fictional Book Characters Who Sparked Our Sexual Awakenings. Meh. None of these ranked in my book, but it’s interesting to see the fellers other gals were into.  And, happily, it reminded me of one of my favorite Toast pieces of all time: Things I’ve Learned About Heterosexual Female Desire From Decades Of Reading.

I think I’m the last one to link to the Alexander London piece Our Stories Are As Unlimited As Our Selves or Why I Came Out as a Gay Children’s Book Author.  A great piece and one that ties in nicely with the GLBTQ chapter of Wild Things.  Should we ever update that book, this is going in.

Oo!  Eisner Award nominees.  Love that stuff, I do.  And check it out!  Not only is Nathan Hale nominated in the Best Publication for Kids category (for The Underground Abductor, naturally) but he’s also in the Best Writer / Artist category as well.  He is the ONLY children’s book creator in that category, by the way.  Regardless of whether or not he wins, that is significant.

Travis Jonker. He comes up with so many good ideas.  Have you seen his Endangered Series, uh, series?  Well, it’s a great idea.  Series that once were strong but now are waning are given a close examination.  Cam Jansen was the latest to fall under scrutiny.  I suspect The Kids of the Polk Street School already hit the dust, but if not then this would be an ideal candidate for a future post.

Wow.  Two thumbs up to the ALSC board for voting to cancel the National Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina.  American Libraries Magazine has the scoop.  Thanks to Jules Danielson for the link.

How on this good green earth did I miss Rick Riordan’s letter to kids who are faced with the dire prospect of being shown one of the Percy Jackson movies in school?  I’ve seen authors dislike their books’ adaptations before, but nothing quite matches this.  Thanks to Monica Edinger for the link.

“With such a huge international variety of books and illustrators on display in Bologna, are there differences in illustration styles among individual countries?” Yep. Moving on.  Oh, wait . . . no, let’s dwell on this idea a bit longer.  Four German children’s book publishers were asked this question and they gave their responses.  The thing is, here in the States we’re seeing some remarkably high quality German children’s book fare on a regular basis and it’s GREAT!  I’d love this question to be regularly posed with folks from other countries as well.

The site Brightly has had a couple good articles up lately.  I liked 8 Surprising Facts About Your Local Librarian not the least because I knew the librarians quoted.  NYC pride!

Daily Image:

I almost never do images of books here for the Daily Image since it’s sort of a case of bringing coals to Newcastle.  But then I saw that one of my greatest picture readalouds, one of my core books, a title I’ve loved for years, is getting a sequel.  At long long last I have an answer for those kids who have been asking me, “Is there a sequel with the tractor?”

Yes, children.  Yes there is.  And life is good.

§ Nice art: Mary Blair  — I was looking up something for an email question and found this scan of Mary Blair’s Cinderella picture book.  Blair, a scene painter, ride designer, illustrator, is perhaps the ultimate nice art. § Headline of the day: Holy crap you guys! There’s a Well-known cartoonist in town! The cartoonist is Lynn Johnston, […]

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is opening a new exhibition featuring the artwork of Mary Blair, an influential designer and art director for The Walt Disney Company.

“The Magic, Color, Flair: the world of Mary Blair,” which opens on November 10, explores her artistic process and her work through the years. Blair worked on the Disney animated films Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan, as well as a number of attractions at Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort. She is best known for the ride “It’s a Small World.”  The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, CA is organizing the exhibit which will take place in Amherst, MA.

The exhibit features several events as well as a book with an essay by exhibition curator and Academy Award-winning animator John Canemaker.

These shorts debuted last week at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

We'll have 2 Chucks, a Natwick, and a Blair.

Mary Blair's artwork takes center stage in this new line of skirts and dresses from Pinup Girl Clothing.

Bob Shea has written and illustrated over a dozen picture books including the popular Dinosaur vs. Bedtime and the cult favorite Big Plans illustrated by Lane Smith.

By Mary Blair

Slow lorises are enigmatic nocturnal primates that are notoriously difficult to find in the wild. The five species of slow loris that have been evaluated by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species are classified as threatened or critically endangered with extinction. So, how did one end up recently on the set of Lady Gaga’s music video? Lorises don’t make good pets or video props, especially as they are the world’s only venomous primates. But, unfortunately, it is easier to see a loris as an exotic pet in a Youtube video or on Rihanna’s shoulder as a photo prop than it is to see them in the wild.

In my current research at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, my team is surveying for Bengal (Nycticebus bengalensis) and pygmy slow lorises (N. pygmaeus) in Vietnam to determine their population status – how many lorises remain across different key sites in Vietnam, and how their current numbers compare to previous surveys. I have written before about the challenges my team has faced searching for these elusive creatures, but this time, I’d like to discuss the broader difficulties of searching for low-density, rare animals, and how knowledge gaps about these creatures can preclude the development of effective management plans for their conservation.

Intensive fieldwork on Vietnam’s primates only began in the mid-1990s, focusing on those species assessed to be the most in danger of extinction, especially gibbons (Nomascus spp.) and colobines such as snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus avunculus), doucs (Pygathrix spp.), and leaf monkeys (Trachypithecus spp.). Comparatively little research to date has focused on species assumed to be common such as the macaques (Macaca spp.) and the nocturnal lorises (Nycticebus spp.). These groups are presumed common because they seem to be able to persist in more diverse habitats including agroforest and regenerating forest, while gibbons, doucs, snub-nosed and leaf monkeys are found in established primary or secondary forests, which are rapidly depleting in Vietnam. As a result of this assumption, very few studies have focused on macaques or lorises in Vietnam and thus, there is very little if any information available to accurately assess their conservation status.

Now that researchers have started collecting data more intensively on slow lorises in Vietnam, we are finding that they are at such low densities that it is difficult to accurately calculate their density with statistical precision. However, as more and more researchers choose to focus on nocturnal, rare mammals like lorises across the globe (from owl monkeys to galagos to colugos), we can synthesize across our efforts to learn from each other, refine our methods, and generate more appropriate statistical models. In addition to continuing our surveys, we also working to raise awareness about threats to slow loris populations in Vietnam, and we are training local forest rangers and researchers to conduct ongoing population monitoring.

Ironically, in this case, there was the least information available about the animals assumed to be the most common. Without fundamental data on population status or distribution, it is difficult to either build effective conservation management plans for slow lorises or attract the federal and private funding necessary to implement such plans. And as such, major conservation actions in the region to date have focused on higher profile primate species, for which there is more information about conservation status. We are finally moving towards having enough scientific information to design a plan of action for improved conservation management of slow loris populations in Vietnam.

In Indonesia, at least 15,000 lorises are trafficked each year for the exotic pet trade. Numbers are not available for Vietnam or other countries in Mainland Southeast Asia, but our work so far suggests that pressure from the trade remains quite high. Our upcoming work in Vietnam, funded by the US National Science Foundation, will expand our research to include social science approaches to better inform policy makers about the underlying social and economic drivers of illicit trade in lorises. You can learn more about what other intrepid loris researchers are doing and how you can help to raise awareness and decrease demand for these endangered animals as exotic pets and photo props.

 Dr. Mary Blair is the Assistant Director for Research and Strategic Planning at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History. Her research explores how knowledge of evolutionary processes can inform conservation planning. Her work in Vietnam is supported in part by the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund and by a US National Science Foundation Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability Fellowship under Grant No. NSF-CHE-1313908. Mary has blogged about her work in Vietnam for the Museum’s Fieldwork Journal and for the New York Times, and is the author of Primate Ecology and Conservation. You can follow Mary on Twitter @marye_blair. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

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Image credits: (1) A pygmy slow loris (Nycticebus pygmaeus) at the Endangered Primate Rescue Center in Cuc Phuong National Park, Vietnam. Photo by Dr. Mary Blair. Do not reproduce without permission. (2) A Bengal slow loris (Nycticebus bengalensis) at the Endangered Primate Rescue Center in Cuc Phuong National Park, Vietnam. Photo by Nolan Bett, used with permission.

The post Tracking down a slow loris appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/22/the-world-of-mary-blair_n_5003658.html

In honor of the release of the 60th Anniversary edition of Peter Pan, here's a brief Disney supplied sildeshow highlighting some of the concept art by the great Mary Blair.

As if yesterday’s news of the Nine Old Men flipbook set wasn’t tantalizing enough, there’s also the Mary Blair Treasury of Golden Books planned for release on August 7. The volume collects Mary Blair’s essential children’s book illustration, along with a foreword by her biographer John Canemaker. More from the publisher:

Fans of illustrator Mary Blair will cherish this never-before-published treasury of her Golden Books, which includes material that hasn’t been in print in decades. I Can Fly is here in its unabridged glory, as are Baby’s House, The Up and Down Book, and The Golden Book of Little Verses. Many of the finest pages from The New Golden Song Book are included, to round out this gorgeous collection. All of the original artwork has been digitally reproduced, and has never looked more breathtaking!

Pre-order is $13.59 on Amazon.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Baby's House, I Can Fly, Mary Blair, The Golden Book of Little Verses, The Up and Down Book

Today’s Google Doodle honours the wonderful Mary Blair. :)

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has two different programs – one on each coast – worthy of your attention and attendence:

On Monday October 10th An Academy Salute to John Hubley. It will be hosted by Oscar winning animator, educator and author John Canemaker and co-curated by filmmaker Emily Hubley. The program will include rarely seen films and an illustrated look at his life and his art by Canemaker, Hubley and animator Michael Sporn. Tickets are $5 for general admission ($3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID). It will sell-out. Order your Tickets Online NOW!

Monday, October 10, 7 p.m.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Academy Theater at Lighthouse International
111 East 59th Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues), New York City

On Thursday October 20th, the 17th Marc Davis Celebration of Animation will present Mary Blair’s World of Color; A Centennial Tribute. This panel will feature Pixar director Pete Docter, Disney animator Eric Goldberg, art director Susan Goldberg, Pixar color key artist Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi and character designer Michael Giaimo in a discussion moderated by animation historian Charles Solomon.

Tickets are $5 for general admission ($3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID) and will go on sale starting October 3rd online, by mail, and in person at the Academy Box Office. This too will sell-out. Be there!

Thursday, October 20, at 7:30 p.m.
at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater
8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: John Canemaker, John Hubley, Mary Blair

Don’t even think of visiting San Francisco without a stop at the Walt Disney Family Museum. And if you are in the Bay area on April 16th you are in for a treat as John Canemaker makes one of his visits to the museum to discuss one of the Disney studio’s greatest artists, Mary Blair. The talk begins at 3pm, with slides, clips and Canemaker’s insights and knowledge. Go! More more information and advance tickets, visit the museum website now.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: John Canemaker, Mary Blair

How do you go from being the head assistant director of Snow White, the head of Disney’s personnel department, and the production supervisor of The Mickey Mouse Club to a homeless panhandler living on the streets of Manhattan? That, in a nutshell, is the strange life of Hal Adelquist, who died in 1981 at the age of 66. At the time of his death, he had moved back to Long Beach, California, and was living with his mother.

The most comprehensive biography I’ve found about him is at this Mickey Mouse Club website. The bio states that he resigned from Disney in 1956, his last major role being the production supervisor of The Mickey Mouse Club: “If there is a tangible reminder of Hal’s contribution to the Mickey Mouse Club, it is that the production made it onto the air on-time, and was such a smashing success in it’s first season. The nerve-wracking effort to bring this off in just a few months weighed more heavily on Hal than on anyone else…Hal’s nerves were badly shot by the experience, and he began to drink heavily.” According to Neal Gabler’s biography of Walt Disney, Adelquist asked Disney a year later to hire him back, even telling Walt that “I’m not particular about the kind of work involved,” but Walt refused.

The bio also alludes to another important role he held at the studio during his twenty-three year career: he was chosen by the Disney Animation Board (better known as the Nine Old Men) to be the frontman for the studio’s animation department and represent the animators’ concerns to Disney and other management.

Fast forward twenty years, and the website Isn’t Life Terrible picks up the story with this 1977 New York Times article that talks about Adelquist’s life in the Bowery Men’s Shelter in Manhattan: “He sits back with his leg in a cast, explaining he has a lot of accidents laterly, and troubles, too, getting money. But he intends to stay only briefly in the shelter before going back up to the East Side, where he used to have an apartment.”

The article explains that he’d held various jobs on the East Coast from being an executive at the Freedomland amusement park in the Bronx to washing cars. The depth of Adelquist’s despair can be summarized when he tells the interviewer that, “I don’t like to panhandle, but sometimes you have to and I’m good at it. You should learn how, you never know.”

The reason for writing about all of this is that I found something in my files this evening while I was doing research on a book project. It’s a copy of a letter (posted below) that Hal Adelquist wrote to David Swift in 1966, halfway between the time he left Disney and ended up homeless. Swift, the former Disney assistant animator, had become a successful live-action director and screenwriter by the mid-1960s and Adelquist was apparently hoping to rekindle their Mickey connection. Ironically, as head of personnel, it had been Adelquist’s thankless task to fire Swift from Disney in 1942, though I know for a fact that it hadn’t been his decision to get rid of Swift.

There are some clues in this letter, such as his wife’s name, his return trips to LA looking for industry work, and his friendships with Hardie Gramatky and Mary Blair, but it’s still hard to fathom the sequence of events that led to the downward spiral in Adelquist’s life. From all accounts, it appears that he was a decent person and more than competent employee. Sometimes that’s not enough, because as Adelquist said, you never know.

(click for larger version of letter)

Mary Blair

I saw this concept art by mid-century animation designer Mary Blair on the wall at Illustration House the other day, and I was blown away by its jewel-like beauty. The colours really are as lovely as the jpg shows. According to the catalogue (you have to click through a few pages to find the full list), it was made for Disney’s 1948 Melody Time. The estimate is only about $2000, which is pretty low for original art by a very well known and loved artist, in my opinion. Oh and there’s a second one being offered too – but I’ll leave that for you to find on your own!

Gyo Fujikawa

I am also enamoured of this cute little illustration by Gyo Fujikawa. “Who?” you may ask? Fujikawa was another female illustrator working at approximately the same time as Mary Blair. She too worked for Disney, before turning to freelance and making children’s books. This image here is from her 1957 Child’s Garden of Verses. Fujikawa came to my attention recently because she appears to be the first woman illustrator to actively take part in the administration and volunteer activities of the Society of Illustrators, circa 1951, which is doubly impressive given her Japanese American background and it being right after the War.

Disclaimer: I hang out a lot at Illustration House. Yes, this is a shameless plug of sorts. But the artwork’s worth it.

Posted by Jaleen Grove on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: Art, auction, children's books, Gyo Fujikawa, Illustration, Illustration house, Mary Blair

YouTube - Little Mary Blair Train

A poem for back-to-school season for all parents who teach, guide, educate, explain, discuss, and develop. Most of the great English poet Robert Browning's education took place at home, centering around his father's library of some 6,000 volumes in English, as well as French, ancient Greek, and Latin. He began composing rhymes even before he learned to read and write by the age of five. Browning