Storyboard of Alice in the White Rabbit's House

 There's been a lot of activity here in the Tulgey Wood these past few weeks.  Work has been creeping along to get the collection room back into shape, and that means that I've been through every storage bin and portfolio as we decide what stays and what goes.  We've also started using the gargantuan flat file we purchased about 5 years ago, now as a staging area and eventually as a final home for some of the larger paper thing like posters and large art.  

To that end, I've uncovered some art that hasn't seen the light of day in quite some time, including this wonderful painted storyboard of Alice entering the front door of the White Rabbit's house in search of his gloves.  It is unclear who the artist is, way back in the 1990s it was shopped around as Mary Blair, but I'm not sure about that.  Regardless it is a great piece with lots of very nice details.  I especially love the rabbit family portrait headed up the stairs.

I must say the finished film matches quite well with this concept piece, although the 'carrot under glass' in the film is a better visual gag than the 'roses under glass' in the concept.  

Model Sheet of Alice from February 1950 - a Recent Addition!

Over the years I've been very successful in finding model sheets of many of the characters from the film, including some very odd ones indeed.  And as one might expect, there were several of Alice herself.  But for the past 32 years one of the Alice sheets has eluded me, but no longer!  Sheet 250-7 is finally in the collection!

This sheet has a couple of very famous poses, most - if not all - taken from the Caterpillar sequence.  The central image is of Alice leaning on the mushroom listening raptly to the Caterpillar, and the image just below it is of Alice saying "...who you are first?"  Feels good to finally have this sheet after so many years.

Key Matching Cel and Master Background

Yeah baby!  One of the final holy grail items for the collection is now safely ensconced in the Tulgey Wood:  a key MATCHING cel and master background!  Woohoo!  Great scene of Alice running through the Tulgey Wood following the Mome Rath path, just before she encounters the Brush Dog.  What a treat.  A great beginning to a new era.

Happy New Year!

So another year has come and gone, and while I have taken some major steps forward in preparation for an upcoming project, the blog has suffered.  Looking back at the history of posts over the past few years it is abundantly clear exactly when I started working for myself  - I'm sure you can guess when too!

That being said, I do have things happening on the Alice front and will continue to update the blog with content as I get the chance.  The first being - today!

This year has been a good one for art acquisitions.  I have been fortunate enough to acquire three new Mary Blair pieces, although I did have to part with another to finance them.  But so it goes, you gotta sell to buy!

I was also lucky enough to score an original page by Mel Crawford from the Little Nipper Storybook which I have not posted yet but have mentioned in several posts - mostly about Japanese books.

And the Australian exhibition closed in October, but is now traveling the world, first stop Singapore!  I will post details when I have them.  Happy New Year to all!

Happy New Year 2018!

Happy New Year!  It has been a while since I've posted, you know that pesky real life.  But I hope to have some interesting news in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!  In the mean time, enjoy this new addition to the Tulgey Wood - a very nice Mary Blair of Alice with the Cheshire Cat.

Mary Blair Alice in the Bottle on the Sea of Tears

What a cool image, I'm not sure I've ever seen a Mary Blair quite like this one.  I love the fish underwater and bubbles.  And at 8x10 it is quite large.  

Mary Blair Alice at the Tea Party

Well, I don't know about you, but I certainly can't seem to get enough of Mary Blair - certainly not in the past few weeks anyway!  I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been able to acquire this Mary Blair.  It features Alice, the White Rabbit (?), the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse all at the mad tea party astride a very large tea service.  How cool is this!

I just love the swirling steam and the detailed line work in the objects and flora.  Genius.

Mary Blair Cheshire Cat Playing with His Head

I love images of the Cat playing with his head, it's just so bizarre!  This Mary Blair was tailor made for me, the only improvement would have been if he was standing on it!

As with the previous piece, the atmosphere is dark and moody - perfect for the Tulgey Wood, and especially so for the Cheshire Cat.  And again, great line work details for the foliage of the tree.

Mary Blair Alice Approaching the Tulgey Wood

It has finally happened - there is a Mary Blair in the house!  Woohoo!  I was lucky enough to acquire not one, but two Mary Blair concept paintings, this being the first.

We seem to specialize in images of Alice's back here at the blog and this is no exception.  But I do love the signs at the entrance of the Tulgey Wood, and the dark line work of the trees surrounding the clearing just before she enters.  Stay tuned for #2 soon!

Dog Flower Mum Cel

This is a cool little cel, once of flowers from the Live Garden, looks to be a mum.

This little guy appears in the scene where Alice is fleeing the mean flowers and it barks at her on her way out.  I like the fact that this is a full cel and retains it notatations in the lower right corner.

Original Art - Walt Disney Comics Digest #46 - April 1974

Something a little more recent, from 1974, the original art for the cover to the Walt Disney Comics Digest issue #46, featuring (you guessed it) an Alice cover!

When Disney was prepping to re-release Alice in 1974, they pumped out almost as much marketing and merchandising as they did in 1951 since it had never been re-released till that time.  This digest contains part of the FC 331 story, which would be continued in a later issue.  But this is the only issue that had Alice on the cover.

Mock Turtle Pastel Storyboard

I love this little storyboard, the Mock Turtle just looks so shocked, or maybe stunned.  Whatever is supposed to be going on in this scene, he was clearly not made aware of it in advance.

I don't know who did this particular piece of art, but if I had to guess I'd put my money on Bill Peet.

One From the Wall - Alice Studio Setup with Walt Signature

We've recently acquired one of our Holy Grail items here in the Tulgey Wood, a Walt Disney signed cel setup.

I love this cel. It is from the very first sequence that was animated, when Alice encounters the Caterpillar.  Several things mark this as such. First, Alice's face is rounder and more childlike than in the rest of the film.  Second, the color of Alice's collar is a lighter shade of blue than the rest of her dress. One can only assume that it was (wisely) decided that it would have been way too much trouble to animate her dress that way throughout the entire film. Third (but only audibly) Kathy's voice is much younger sounding in this sequence than in any other. 

I've always wanted a cel from this sequence, and a Walt signed cel?  Killed two birds with one stone with this acquisition.

I also figured something out, like a bolt from the blue.  Remember this cel setup from before, the one that Walt *almost* showed on national television?

I always wondered why the mat board at the bottom was so much wider than at the top.  And now I know:  To allow for Walt's enormous signature!  Guess he just never got around to signing my other setup.  Oh well, probably a good thing, it would've cost me a whole lot more than it already did!

Alice's Sister Full Figure Cel

Cels of Alice's sister are rare enough, she has so little screen time, but full figure images are very tough simply because she's only on screen for a few seconds at the very end of the film standing over Alice trying to wake her up.  I recently acquired this full figure cel and it is quite lovely, wouldn't you agree?

Alice Animation Drawing - Watching the March of the Cards

Another cool - and large - drawing, this time just of Alice's head as she's watching the March of the Cards.  This scene was mostly animated by Hal Ambro, and Alice's head is really the only thing moving, the rest of her body was on a still cel.  Neat, isn't it?

White Rabbit Animation Drawing Sequence

Now this is really cool.  A sequence of drawings of the White Rabbit as animated by Bill Justice.  Bill was a good friend of mine, and it was me who reminded him on one of his birthday's, lo these many years ago, that he did in fact do considerable animation of this character.  This sequence of 14 drawings is from the scene where Alice has just grown huge in the White Rabbit's house, and he rushes off to get help.  While not a very long sequence in time - slighly more than 1/2 second - it is still amazing to see exactly how much detail is in each frame of animation.

Using a little Photoshop magic I have been able to create an animated GIF of these drawings above, so enjoy!  The full sequence of individuals follows.

Original Pan Background Auction Result

On Friday December 19th, 2014, Profiles in History held a major animation art auction in conjunction with the Van Eaton Gallery.  In it this beautiful pan background was sold for a whopping $65,000.00 + buyer's premium, totaling $81,250.00.

According to the auction listing:

In the feature, the camera pans across this spectacular master background of house and grounds, with a view of gardens, flowering forest beyond and incredible starry sky. Disney Studio created the pan cel for exhibition purposes. This set of originals was included in The Art of Animation exhibits shown in America, Europe and Japan in the 1950s into the early 1960s. The Art of Animation was the last major touring exhibition of Disney Studio art sponsored by the Disney Company. This artwork is also published on page 55 of The Art and Flair of Mary Blair book by John Canemaker.

While the auction says that the cel was created by the studio, one wonders why they got her legs wrong?

The auction had hundreds of amazing items, including many Alice cels, paintings and drawings.  The full catalog can be viewed here and here.

I was fortunate enough to acquire two items in this auction, more on those when they arrive after the holidays!

Animation Model Sheet 350-8031 - Walrus

I love this model sheet.  These ruff sheets with story art just have so much life and character to them, I wish there were more of them out there.

Again my untrained eye thinks of Bill Peet when it sees this art, but of course I could be wrong.

I had the very good fortune to see the original at the Montreal Disney exhibit Once Upon a Time in June of 2007 - now that was quite a drive!  The original was loaned by the ARL for the exhibit which toured exactly two cities:  Paris and Montreal.  But there is a catalog!

Courtroom Scene Rotoscope Layout Drawings

This just in from the far flung reaches of the Tulgey Wood, a set of rotoscope layout drawings of the courtroom scene.  There seems to be a lot of courtroom art out there, and I have my fair share of it.

What's neat about these is that they are a close match to the previous set of animation rotoscopes I posted earlier.

These are not meant to be animation drawings (I think) but layout drawings.

The 5 digit numbers written on the page correspond to the frame number on the live action footage shot for this scene.  You can see examples of this on the various scenes included on the supplemental of the newest DVD and Blu-Ray discs.

Framing/tracking boxes here also lend to the layout argument.

But, what is cool is that I do have a matched set, one from the animation drawing and one from this set of layout drawing, that both correspond to frame 05322.

You can see subtle differences, due I'm sure to the tracing style of whomever did the trace for the animation vs layout drawings.  But they both match very well with the final image.

I just love stuff like this :-)

2013 Year in Review

This year was a sporadic one for the blog, but we covered some interesting topics.  The majority of the year was spent on animation art, in particular animation drawings. I even tried my hand at a little animation myself :-)

We also looked at a variety of Italian movie posters

A new Zaccagnini discovery

Some David Hall storyboards

A few cels

And who could forget the Vinyl Aprons!

A variety of trading cards from around the world

Some really cool dolls

And some early attraction tickets

And last but not least, some really big leaves!

I wish every one of my faithful readers a safe and prosperous new year.  See you in 2014!