Tissa David and John Canemaker

John Canemaker has generously shared a lengthy video interview with the late Tissa David. It is part autobiography, part nuts and bolts instruction and part philosophy, illustrated by clips of Tissa's work for John and Faith Hubley, Michael Sporn, R.O. Blechman and others.

I knew Tissa when I was beginning my career and it's remarkable how little she changed physically in 30 years.  I also realized when watching this that there are things I'm teaching my students that I learned from Tissa. 

Tissa rarely had the opportunity to work on projects with large budgets.  She was a fantastic draftsman, but she was always conscious of how to get the maximum effect from each drawing.  Her animation was forced to be limited in the sense that she was only allowed a limited number of drawings, but her art and acting were so strong that there was no limit to the expressiveness she could communicate.

It's wonderful to have this video available as a record of her thoughts and work.  Not enough animators write autobiographies, but this lengthy visit with Tissa is the next best thing.

John Canemaker's generosity doesn't stop with this video.  May has been a banner month for John, with the release of an updated version of The Art and Flair of Mary Blair and two new books.  Magic Color Flair: The World of Mary Blair was created to accompany an exhibit of Blair's work at the Disney Family Museum.  The Lost Notebook: Herman Schultheis and the Secrets of Walt Disney's Movie Magic is an annotated version of a manual put together by an early Disney special effects artist.  Cartoon Brew has published samples from the book and Jerry Beck has reviewed it at Cartoon Research.

Mini History Lesson

Profiles in History is having an auction entitled Icons of Animation on December 17. While the majority of items are out of my price range (maybe all of them actually), you can download a catalog of the auction for free.

Even if you're not in the market to buy, the catalog is a mini history lesson by itself. It contains art from Disney, MGM, Warner Bros, Fleischer and Hanna Barbera. There is work by Bill Tytla, Fred Moore, Carl Barks, Bob Clampett, Virgil Ross, Irv Wyner, Mary Blair, Preston Blair, Gustav Tenggren, Charles Schulz, etc. There are worse ways to spend time than by paging through the download and admiring so much beautiful stuff.

(link via Disney History)