Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures (Paperback)

~ (Author), Don Hahn (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Review

For nearly thirty years, the artists that passed through the gates of Disney Animation, and even non-artists like myself, were influenced by the craft, skill, wisdom, writings and sketches of Walt Stanchfield.

Roy Disney

Walt was a kind of Mark Twain for us at Disney. He always taught with humor and skill. You learned to see the world through his eyes. I remember him one day encouraging us to leap into our drawings with boldness and confidence, "Don't be afraid to make a mistake. We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us so the sooner you get them out the better!" Sitting in Walt's class was as much a psychology course as it was a drawing class. One couldn't help walk away with your mind and soul a little more open than when you entered.

Glen Keane, Walt Disney Animation Studios

Walt Stanchfield's classes and writings were little distillations of the man: quirky, strongly stated in a genial voice, and brimming with a lifetime of sharp observations about story telling and graphic communication. Whether he drew with a ball point pen or painted with a brush dipped in his coffee cup, he got to the essence of things and was eager to share what he learned to his eager disciples, myself among them. He was grizzled and he was great and proof that there was more than one Walt at the Disney Studio that could inspire a legion of artists.  

John Musker, Walt Disney Animation Studios

Walt Stanchfield was one of Disney Animation's national treasures. His classes and notes have inspired countless animation artists, and his approach to drawing of caricature over reality, feeling over rote accuracy, and communication over photographic reproduction gets to the heart of what great animation is all about. Huzzah to Don Hahn for putting it all together for us!

Eric Goldberg, Walt Disney Animation Studios

During the Animation Renaissance of the 1990s, one of the Walt Disney Studio's best kept secrets was Walt Stanchfield. Once a week after work, this aged but agile figure jumped from drawing board to drawing board, patiently teaching us the principles behind the high baroque style of Walt Disney Animation drawing. Being in a room with Walt made you feel what it must have been like to have been taught by Don Graham. Having one of your life drawings be good enough to be reproduced in one of his little homemade weekly bulletins was akin to getting a Distinguished Service medal! Senior animators vied with trainees for that distinction.

Tom Sito, Animator/Filmmaker/Author of Drawing The Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson

This exciting collection of master classes by the great teacher Walt Stanchfield is destined to become a classic on the order of Kimon Nicolaides' exploration of the drawing process. Stanchfield (1919-2000) inspired several generations of Disney animators and those of us outside the studio fortunate enough to happen upon dog-eared copies of his conversational notes, which we passed around like Leonardo's Codex Leicester. Stanchfield beautifully communicates the essence and joy of expressing ideas through the graphic line and accumulating a visual vocabulary. DRAWN TO LIFE is a treasure trove of cogent, valuable information for students, teachers and anyone who loves to draw.

John Canemaker, NYU professor and Academy Award-winning animation filmmaker

Walt Stanchfield, in his own unique way, taught so many of us about drawing, caricature, motion, acting and animation. Most important to me, was how Walt made you apply what you had observed in his life drawing class to your animation. Disney Animation is based on real life, and in that regard Walt Stanchfield's philosophy echoed Walt Disney's:

'We cannot caricature and animate anything convincingly until we study the real thing first.'

Andreas Deja, Walt Disney Animation Studios

Walt Stanchfield's renewed emphasis on draftsmanship at the Disney Studios transformed the seemingly moribund art of animation. His students were part of a renaissance with The Little Mermaid and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a renaissance that continues with films ranging from The Iron Giant to Lilo and Stitch to Wall-E.

Charles Solomon, Animation Historian

I'm so grateful to Focal Press for publishing these fabulous Walt Stanchfield books. They are veritable 'gold dust' for the serious (and aspiring) animator! So 'hurrah' to Focal and 'hurrah' to Don Hahn to committing himself to compiling them. I ordered my copies the minute I saw them and will of course hope my students are smart enough to do so too! 

Tony White, DigiPen, Author of 'Animation: From Pencil to Pixels' and 'How to Make Animated Films'

Product Description

Discover the lessons that helped bring about a new golden age of Disney animation!

Published for the first time ever, Drawn to Life is a two volume collection of the legendary lectures from long-time Disney animator Walt Stanchfield. For over twenty years, Walt helped breathe life into the new golden age of animation with these teachings at the Walt Disney Animation Studios and influenced such talented artists as Tim Burton, Brad Bird, Glen Keane, and John Lasseter. These writings represent the quintessential refresher for fine artists and film professionals, and it is a vital tutorial for students who are now poised to be part of another new generation in the art form.

* Legendary lessons from a master Disney animator - meet the man who put the wiggle in Jessica Rabbit's walk!
* Packed full of illustrations from some of the top animators in the world including Brad Bird, Glen Keane and John Lasseter
* Two volumes and 800 pages of pure gold - get in-depth advice and instruction on bringing your characters to life

Sample Pages from Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 1 (Click images for larger versions)

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press (April 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0240810961
• ISBN-13: 978-0240810966
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,284 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must have for any aspiring Disney animators, April 13, 2009

By	M. Gabriel (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

These two volumes are a master class in Disney style animation thinking. Essentially, a goldmine of what we learned here at Disney as young animators trying to follow in the shoes of the masters of the craft of character animation. I was lucky enough to have been taught every one of these lessons from Walt himself over my thirty years and running as an animator/story man/director/designer at Walt Disney Studios. I only wish you all could have met the man who brings this wealth of knowledge to these pages. He made you feel good just being around him. He was never dour or sour or in any way unhappy. If he was, he hid it completely from us. He was the coolest "old guy" you could ever hope to be taught by. Athletic, youthful in every way, passionate, inquisitive, searching and digging for the answers all the time. He stayed hungry for improvement his entire life and we all try to emulate that to this day and make our teacher and friend proud of us for trying. You will not only most definitely be a better artist after reading these volumes I practically guarantee you will be a better person for having gotten to know Walt Stanchfield and his way of looking at life and art as one. We all feel this way at Disney, believe me.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The other half of the set-be sure to get both!, April 5, 2009

By	Nancy Beiman "Northernexpress" (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

The first volume of DRAWN TO LIFE covers mainly basic gesture drawing, while the second volume explores how to 'push' the action and create distinct personalities in gesture sketches. These two books are a wonderful addition to the library of animation.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A completely unexpected pleasure, April 27, 2009

By	New England Yankee (Northern New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

(What's this?)

I acquired Drawn to Life thinking it would be nice background material on typical Disney animation characters - sort of an insider's look at their production and development. Perhaps even a way to acquire some unusual character drawings. Wrong entirely!

What this book is, is a very specialized art instruction book aimed at animation artists and Disney animation artists specifically. Still, it does teach focus on, and simplification of gesture in a way that can be effectively used in any medium. Had I to reduce Drawn to Life to its barest topic, it would be just that - capturing and communicating gesture. Animation requires special techniques adapted to 2D line drawing. Those are the heart of the book, along with Walt Stanchfield's philosophy, optimism, and personification of Disney post-WWII history.

The book is a collection of Walt Stanchfield's weekly lectures to the Disney animators, consisting of drawing handouts and notes. The lecture topics were, and are, essentially random (his own term) as this wasn't intended as a course of study, but as professional development and continuing ed for an existing, highly-accomplished staff of artists. There are 149 lectures in the first volume alone, under such titles as "Using Cylinders", "Think First ...", "Get Out Of Your Way", "Action Analysis", "Silhouette", and so on.

Having dabbled in art classes and books over the years, I often find such material highly-technical ... and deadly dull. Drawn to Life is neither. Though the volume is large (nearly 400 pages), each lecture chapter is short and to the point. Stanchfield's teaching style is literate and personable, often humorous and riddled with stories. Drawings accompanying each lecture are quite loose and sketchy, invariably on-point, and amazingly convincing. Who knew that the subtlest shift in the slant of a line could be so compelling?

I walked away with a renewed appreciation for animation artists, an enhanced vocabulary that includes terms like stretch and squish, and tools I lacked to evaluate animation quality. Recommended, not just for artists, but for anyone intrigued by animation. Naturally, the Disney characters and commentary sprinkled throughout are fun, too.