Il Etait une Fois Walt Disney: I meant to write about this earlier, but I got so excited that I’d actually be seeing it next month that I almost completely forgot! Le Grand Palais in Paris is running an fantastic exhibition of classic Disney artwork alongside the works that inspired them. It runs until January 15th 2007, so there’s still time to catch it before the exhibition moves to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from March 8 to June 24th 2007.

There’s a superb slideshow of artwork at l’Express and Cartoon Brew (where I originally found out about the exhibition) has a few more details as well.

Update: I’ve been! Read my report here.

Tim Biskup is one of my favourite modern-day artists, and there’s a new article on him over at Helio: 7 things you should know about Tim Biskup. (via Drawn!)

Following his lessons on cartoon colour theory John has started a series on composition. I’ll readily admit that I don’t always agree with every word the guy says on his blog but, once again, these lessons are a treat. Again, many of these lessons can easily be applied to other mediums, such as film, television and illustration.

1. Composition for layout and background artists
2. Intersection
3. Clear staging
4. Staging groups of characters
5. Negative vs positive space
6. Avoid The Middle, Asymmetry is more natural and interesting
7. Compose your poses together
8. For Layout and BG artists – Form over detail, lettering, study other artists

Steve Worth is also adding some more valuable stuff on compostion at the Hollywood Animation Archive blog; including the 1960’s Famous Artists lesson: 3. Composition – How to make pictures.

They also have a couple of other Famous Artists lessons on their site, including: 24. Television Art and 16. Animals

Enjoy!

John K, of Ren and Stimpy and Spumco fame, is currently doing a very interesting series on his colours theories on his blog. Although he’s talking about colour in cartoons, the information could easily be applied to most artistic mediums.

UPDATE: He’s also now posting some great stuff from early Hanna Barbera colour stylist and background painter, Art Lozzi.

Colour Theories for Cartoons

1. Garish versus Warm
2. Pee and Poo colors versus Colorful Greys
3. Look at the sky before you paint a sunset
4. What’s wrong with these pictures?
5. Good color without a lot of money – Art Lozzi at Hanna Barbera
6. Does cost equal quality?
7. Will It Ever End?
8. Eye relief
9. Steal from anime if you can’t think of anything yourself
10. Neutral or natural colours
11. Art Lozzi: Early days at Hanna Barbera
12. Colour and Background painting reference: Old Golden Books
13. Art Lozzi: Bob Gentle and Skeeter Trouble
14. Art Lozzi: Scooter Looter, Paint Technique, BG Painting
15. Art Lozzi explains some technique
16. Color isolated from detailed technique: Yogi Bear ‘High Fly Guy’
17. Art Lozzi: Hanna Barbera starts to standardise

The street in Brighton that I moved out of just 6 months ago plays host to a week-long rooftop art show!

“It will take the form of still and moving images projected onto large rooftop screens after dusk. They will be visible from a substantial part of the city. The installation will last for one week from 16th till 23rd September 2006 beginning with a street party for residents.”

If you want to see it for yourself the installation will last for one week with 6 showings a night from 7:30pm until 11pm on the rooftops of Compton Road, Brighton from the 16th until 23rd September 2006 and will be visible from the valley area around Preston Park and Fiveways. Visit the Compton Skyline website for more information.

Sadly, I’m out of town for much of the duration but hope to catch the final show before it’s taken down on the 23rd.

The Big Round Cubatron: “is the world’s largest 3-dimensional full color dynamic light sculpture. It is an array of lights 40 feet in diameter and 10 feet high. It consists of 28 spokes, each of which is 24 lights wide by 9 lights high. Each light is independently controllable to display any color and brightness level and the entire display can be updated 50 times per second. There are 6048 total lights (28 * 24 * 9) made of 18,144 LEDs.”

If you didn’t make it to Burning Man in person, you can see it in action here and make it youself (if you’re rich).