I have always appreciated animation from growing up and watching Disney movies. The “bonus features” on a DVD that explained the creative process of drawing a character intrigued me. And seeing how intricate it is to create animation inspired my art journey today, as Pixar films are the primary source of my color selections in paintings and digital illustrations. In this short blog post, I will give a brief overview of the history of animation, highlighting the Walt Disney Company and Claymation through its growth in popularity since the early 20th century.
Animation is a visual art form created in the early 20th century that combines technology and hand-drawn creations. According to the textbook, Exploring Art: A Global, Thematic Approach, “Animation grew out of flipbooks, in which a series of drawn images seems to move as book pages are flipped rapidly.” (Lazzari. 2020). While animation comes from collections of drawings and paintings (Lazzari. 2020), animation has progressed over the decades with expanding technology.
Animation today can be identified through the masterful work of illustrators associated with the Walt Disney Company and DreamWorks Studios. The earliest technicolor feature film that utilized animation design was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) by the Walt Disney Company. “It was the first film of its kind made in America: a feature-length story crafted entirely in the animated medium.” (Seastrom. 2017). The movie required hundreds of artists, thousands of hours, and millions of sketches. Today, artists can develop animated feature films nearly completely with technology with a small team of creators. For example, as artists created animation from live illustrations, artists from Pixar Studios now utilize more digital rendering movements to develop movies and short animation projects. Animators used technology that allowed them to create more work quickly, keeping up with their concepts and creativity.
Drawing, painting, and technology are just a few of the many outlets of how animation is produced today. For example, Claymation became a popular tool, inviting a collaboration of sculpture and digital rendering. Still used today, Claymation is a unique form of animation that collides different perspectives of creativity and storytelling into visual art. Nevertheless, animation from the early 1920s vastly differs from today’s work and constantly changes from flipbooks to Claymation to digital vector tools.
Hannah J. Pasquini © 2023
Works Cited:
Lazzari, M., and Schlesier, D. (2020) Exploring Art: A Global, Thematic Approach, 5th ed., Chapter 14.4a, “Film, Television, and Cartoons.” Cengage Learning.
Seastrom, Lucas O. (2017) “80 Years Later – The Legacy of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” Article from The Walt Disney Family Museum. https://www.waltdisney.org/snow-white-and-seven-dwarfs-character
*All images from the gallery were found on Pinterest. They are the property of Walt Disney Animation Studios and/or Pixar Studios. I do not own the rights to any Disney Animation photos or videos. Link Example: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/829154981415288267/
