Illustration: Early 50s Disney Christmas Cards

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 3 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about 50s children's book illustrators.

1948


No, you're not suffering from some sort of holiday flashback... It's almost Valentine's Day, not Christmas! Today, we digitized a batch of wonderful 1950s Christmas cards from the Disney studio from 1948 through the mid-1950s. The designs on these cards are so much fun, it makes you wish the films themselves looked this cartoony.

You might wonder why I chose today to post Christmas images. This illustrates a point that I need to make every once in a while... The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog is NOT the archive itself. It is only a forum for us to report the progress of the project and show examples of the sorts of things we were working on that particular day. Today, we digitized Christmas cards... tomorrow it might be an illustrated children's book from the 1920s... the next day a clip from an animated cartoon by Paul Terry... there is no order implied or intended. The order comes in the way keyword searches link material within the database itself.

The other thing to keep in mind is that for every image you see here on this blog, there are dozens and dozens that we don't post. Our database has grown into the terabytes. There's no way that we will ever be able to post all of it online. My hope is to eventually syndicate the archive as kiosks at university libraries, studios and ASIFA chapters all over the world. But that's quite a ways in the future!

I want to thank the family of Clair Weeks for sharing these great cards with us. See the bottom of this post for links to more treasures from the Weeks collection.




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1956




Many thanks again to the family of Clair Weeks for sharing these with us.

For more treasures from the collection of Clair Weeks, see... History: Clair Weeks' Goodbye Book and History: 1938 Disney Artists' Tryout Book

See you at the Annies!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Media: Mice and Duck Models

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts featuring animation art.

Today, we had a full complement of volunteers, and we digitized more of the model sheets loaned to us by Archive Alliance member, Van Eaton Galleries. The batch consisted of models of Mickey and Donald from various vintages. For more Disney model sheets, see... Reluctant Dragon and Pinocchio Model Sheets and Two Disney Concept Artists.















One of these model sheets surprised me. Take a look at them and see if you can see why. These images are perfect to use to hone your drawing skills in Lesson Seven of John K's $100,000 Drawing Course.

These original production photostatic model sheets are available for sale by Van Eaton Galleries for $50 apiece. If you decide to add any of them to your collection, tell the folks at the Van Eaton Galleries that ASIFA-Hollywood referred you, and they will donate a portion of your purchase price to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

For more Disney model sheets, see... Reluctant Dragon and Pinocchio Model Sheets and Two Disney Concept Artists

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

9.5.08
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