Pat and Mike Show Christmas

It's our Christmas episode of the Pat and Mike Show. It’s a tribute to the men and women of animation that my wife Patty and I were honored to work alongside for many years. I designed and animated it by myself in just over 3 1/2 weeks with Patty providing dialog, ideas, encouragement and spiked eggnog. 

Link Below:
Pat and Mike Christmas Show

Adventure in the Land of Aladdin!

We were honored to be invited to attend the Middle East Animation and Comic Convention as their special guests. We arrived a bit early at LAX and were invited up to the lounge to relax and enjoy a sumptuous buffet of roast beef. (Did see one young lady choosing only the vegetables. I’ve never seen herbivore. LOL). The lounge had a direct connection to the upper First Class and Business cabin on the plane so the boarding was a breeze. Enjoying a bit of liquid encouragement to steady the nerves before take off. In this case the designated driver is the pilot.

The Emirates hostesses were incredible and brought over an assortment of warm nuts and a tasty collection of olives. The Mojito was absolutely the best version I have ever had of my favorite Cuban cocktail. The seats even had their own mini bars! So I guess I would have to call those drinks marteenies?

Our hostess also brought by a gluten free snack. We were handed menus as lunch will be served soon. Gee, I’m wondering how much weight I might gain just during the flight? Enjoying these delicious meals is like not inviting Scrooge McDuck to join you for dinner. You never have to see the “bill”.

Patty and I finished a delicious multi course dinner. Like the cows who gamble, the "steaks" couldn’t have been much higher, at this altitude. They served us over white linen tablecloths and used fine china complete with heavy silverware. So like Luke Skywalker used to say during his meal, may the forks be with you. After dessert we took in a movie before turning in for the evening.

They come to your seat and place a comfy fitted mattress along with a soft filled blanket and pillow. The seat control buttons can turn them into various shapes from reclining like an easy chair to a completely flat and spacious bed (your feet won’t even touch with all the room it creates!). 

The ceiling lights are dimmed to blue and thousands of tiny little lights slowly fade up to give the feeling of a magical night sky spreading across the entire cabin. Patty was obviosly zonked and fell asleep quickly. She'll get me later for this shot, lol! Well, goodnight all.

We really enjoyed the flight and the helpful and friendly staff but it was nice to finally unpack at our hotel for the evening. It was just amazing!

As far as taste, it was “suite”. (The towels are so lush and thick I could hardly close my suitcase!) Patty made me promise to take in some sights tomorrow and I readily agreed to her suggestion.

Patty checks out the daunting view in the main stairwell. Thank goodness there was an elevator around the corner or it would have been a toss up whether our knees or vertigo would have won out, lol.

We have the honor of sharing the main entrance of the International Artists space with our good friend Hirokatsu Kihara. He was the right hand man of Hayao Miyazaki, founder of Studio Ghibli. You may have enjoyed their wonderful films including Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service and other animated classics.

We were thrilled to be sharing our space with such an amazing and talented icon! Hiro and I are really having a blast! As he puts it, "DISNEY & STUDIO GHIBLI!" They placed our tables at the very beginning of the entry area for the International Artists and that was an honor in it self! Literally hundreds of folks came to our tables during the Expo and it was quite a nice experience to meet so many fans from around the world.

I was happy to put on a workshop for children and adults of how to draw some of their favorite animated friends. I drew on a small digital tablet that showed my live sketching up on a large screen. People could sit at the tables and use the tablets provided to follow along.

The area was completely filled to over flowing and they allowed the extra people who wanted to attend to stand in the back, some using their sketchbooks to follow along.

Of course I did it all while speaking in each character’s voice which they really got a kick out of! I also told brief histories of each character's creation including in this case mentioning my old friend Carl Barks who was Scrooge McDuck's "pappa". I don’t remember the last time I received a standing ovation (actually make that a sitting ovation) for simply drawing the things I truly enjoy. They even laughed at my corny jokes!

Patty and I attempted to put on an entertaining if not downright embarrassingly hilarious show sharing our 45 years in the often wacky animation business. From the age of traditional hand drawn on paper to the cutting edge of today’s digital dreams and all the bumpy roads inbetween. Folks have been coming up to us all afternoon to tell us how much they enjoyed it which makes us feel pretty darn good! At least no one threw any tomatoes at us, or if they did they were terrible shots.

Abdul was staying in the suite next to ours in the hotel and on the second day of the event, he decided to drop by as… me! What he didn’t know was that moments earlier I had been given a beautiful brand new box set kaffiyeh, the traditional headdress of Arab men complete with ghutah made of woven goat hair and hand embroidered white linen skull cap by a wonderful fan and new friend who placed all the pieces on my head properly just moments before he arrived.

In Abdul’s words, we had switched places!!

We were sad to bid farewell but promised our many wonderful new friends we would return. We set sail on the “ships of the desert” and cruised across the sandy seas to the airport for our 16 hour flight back home to California. It was certainly a wonderful trip and the magical memory of a lifetime.

Duck fans Across the "Pond"

We just returned from an exciting adventure to Europe where we had the opportunity to meet the friendliest fans of the Disney Afternoon and Feature work that Patty and I were fortunate to be a part of over the years. Before we set foot into the plane though, we both were working hard months earlier to create something special for the collectors that were already contacting us about the events. In fact more than a year earlier I was commissioned to create an oil painting while Patty was likewise asked to create another of her stunning "cloth creations" which have become so well known and collected at the Disney Parks.

My better half and I began creating some new pieces in our little studios. Obviously a certain miserly mallard from Duckburg, Uncle Scrooge McDuck, is one of our favorite subjects! My painting, "Portrait of Success," is in oil and I actually let it dry for over 8 months before applying the Damar varnish. Patty created her piece, "Number One Dime",  entirely from thread, cloth, and a bit of stuffing hench the branding phrase she uses, "Cloth Creations". She was constantly cutting, re-cutting and trying new cloth and thread combinations over many weeks to get it exactly the way she wanted it.

Carefully adding the varnish

From the ODOR IN THE COURT Dept: After carefully and s-l-o-w-l-y drying the painting in a custome drying box (with side vents) over a period of just under a year it was ready for the final application. Applying a couple of coats of old school Winsor Newton Dammar varnish over my dried oil portrait painting of Scrooge McDuck was a bit daunting. I heated up a jar of Dammar within a bowl of boiling water and just a hint of turpentine in the traditional method to help thin it a wee bit so it would go on smoothly. The varnish really brought all the color back to life! Very happy how it all came together, except for that smell. A day later and the smell is almost gone!
As Scrooge might say, "It all makes SCENTS now."

This photo of Patty and I was taken moments before they open the doors of the event to the public. (They're expecting over 28,000!) The jet lag might be there but hopefully no one will notice. Patty said if I start to get sleepy she'll be happy to pour cold water over my head. (what a doll!)

It's times like this when we're signing with paint pens, that I'm glad my name doesn't have too many letters. And for those wondering, NO, I am not about to sign the tablecloth. They had just removed a stack of glicees I had signed before they took this pic. They did an amazing job reproducing my oil painting 1 to 1 size on heavy weight acid free paper.

But let me tell you about Patty's latest Cloth Creation. I really love what she has created and the photo here on the right really doesn't do it justice. Eveyone's eyes pop and jaws drop when they see it up close. I will say though that the glicee reproductions of her cloth are actually are so sharp you might think they are the original cloth instead of the stretched canvas surface! It is truly a magnificent piece fit for Scrooge's Money Bin Gallery!

An interesting bit of trivia, Patty went with the traditional red coat used in European comics and older Disney editions while I went with the blue coat we used on our original series of DuckTales. (I prefer the red one, but don't tell anyone.)

This event also gave me the opportunity to pay tribute to my old friend Carl Barks and his character creation and the inspiration for our DuckTales series in a sculpted form in addition to the oil painting. This is the first of a series of animated characters I am sculpting that will be released as a resin cast with a gold color finish (what else would Uncle Scrooge have preferred!) and the bronze version will be a later edition.

This wasn't a sketch sent overseas to have someone else sculpt which is unfortunately the norm for most Disney collectable pieces these days. instead, I drew it out in sketches and sculpted this piece myself. Scrooge McDuck and future Disney cartoon animation legends will also be posed atop the sculpted version of my trusty old animation disc. This was my original prototype and I was playing around with tints. The resin will be completely one color (Scrooge McDuck prefers the gold hue) but the later bronze may have value tints and even colors. The resin was reproduced beautifully and is in an even smoother finish than this.
I was surprised that no one I spoke with overseas was familiar with the base that I made which was "based" on an old animation disc.

These are a few of the lovely people we met over the three days we were there.

Patty and I have been blessed to meet so many incredible fans at the event. One person took a boat for 3 hours from the island they lived on to get there to see us and purchase a signed sculpture. Another got up at 5AM and drove over 4 hours for a print of the oil and an original pastel!
Thank you to everyone who has made our visit so memorable including Koushi, Kamilla, Brian, Paw, Tora, Anders, Glenn and especially Niels and to everyone who stopped by our table. We are truly humbled at all of these amazing fans and it is an honor and privilege to be able to spend time with them.

Like all good things, even this lively fan event came to an end but as they say when one door closes, another one opens. Well that doorway was to Tivoli Gardens! Walt Disney visited here many times and found inspiration for his park to be called Disneyland. Patty is waiting for me to take the dern photo so we can get into the park.

The park opened on August 15, 1843 and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world. Tivoli is always evolving without abandoning its original charm or traditions. George Carstensen said in 1844: "Tivoli will never, so to speak, be finished", a sentiment echoed just over a century later when Walt Disney said of his own Tivoli-inspired themed park- "Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world".

It's therefore no secret that Walt was extremely impressed with Tivoli Gardens and studied elements of it as a basis for his future park to be called Disneyland. Lillian and Walt enjoying one of their many visits to Tivoli while Walt trades his usual skimmer hat for a bearskin shako in the photo on the left.

When I was 3 1/2 years old in New Orleans, my dad gave me a bit of his steak at a steak house in the Big Easy. It was the best thing I have ever eaten and have searched with no luck across the globe for that same taste since. Well, we found it in Tivoli Gardens where Patty and I had the most scrumptious birthday dinner at Groften's Restaurant in Tivoli Gardens! The service and meal were the best! What a wonderfully romantic evening!!

As empty as the gardens were, this place was packed, and with good reason. The food was the best I've had in a long time,... outside of Patty's cooking (whew! close call). All those years later and I finally located that delicious steak flavor, in another country!

After celebrating our birthdays with that delicious dinner, we left the restaurant and got something to drink from the local cauldron to wash down a swirl of cotton candy. We got the inside dope where to stand for the animated water and light show and we were not disappointed.

If the place looks fairly empty, it's because being the last day of the season,... it was pretty much was. We weren't complaining as there were no lines for anything, and it was simply beautiful!

Tivoli Gardens is such a lovely park and made even more magical with the cool light mist that was wafting throughout the evening. We got the inside dope where to stand for the animated water and light show and we were not disappointed. If the place looks fairly empty, it's because being the last day of the season,... it was pretty much was. We weren't complaining as there were no lines for anything, and it was simply beautiful! Here is Tivoli's iconic whale's mouth snack stand with the old lighthouse next door still illuminating the area. You can probably tell that it was cold and a light drizzle of a fine mist permeated the park. Patty and I just loved it as it is certainly a change from perpetually warm and sunny Southern California.

It's easy for us folks with squeaky knees to walk around across Copenhagen as it's relatively flat, like a few of my jokes. Patty and walked across this bridge twice a day. The view of Nyhavn, Copenhagen along the canal is lovely, even when it's overcast.
Our lovely Copenhagen apartment is just around the corner but out of respect to the owner who graciously gave it to us during the stay I won't show any photos or give the address.
Every turn in this beautiful city presented us with yet another stunning view of magnificent architecture and friendly people. It's nice to see folks embrace and hold onto their architectural history and culture.

The sign by the way is from a little neighborhood cafe and is advertising their delicious homemade Lentil soup with bread.

We had to visit the Little Mermaid statue while we were here. There was a small group of kind people there that helped us get closer (to Ariel) on those slippery wet rocks without falling into the water, and took the photo for us.

Another checkoff from the bucket list. Well, we have to pack now and head home. SO relieved we don't have Covid!

Scrooge McDuck!

I was recently asked to do an oil painting of one of my favorite miserly fine feathered friends, Scrooge McDuck. He is of course officially licensed by Disney and will be unveiled in the fall. This is a photo Patty took of me up in the studio tickling old Scrooge with my paint brush.

Disney Publishing, Then & Now

 

My copy is the one on the left

A few of us were discussing the differences in the publishing tastes over the years regarding the classic Disney children's book illustration.

Sleeping Beauty was brought up as an example so I thought I would share my copy (on the left) with the current version on the right. The original employed an artistic take on the film's style for its cover with the other version decades later using essentially a frame of the film as the guide for its cover. Make no mistake, the interior of the original was loaded with art that was true to the film.

You'll have to excuse the tattered look of my copy as it was given to me by my grandmother in 1957. It's a first edition written by Jane Werner Watson and illustrated by the key stylist of the film- Eyvind Earl along with another huge talent Julius Svendsen. It's well worn by my reading it many times during my childhood (and still enjoyed by me today!). It also showcases many concept paintings by Eyvind which are stunning!

On the right is the 1986 version. Although it is still published as a "Big Golden Book" it only measures 8¼" x 11" whereas the one of the left was 10¼" x 13". Also the number of illustrations in the later release was cut down by a third from the original edition.

The original was much closer to the film with its dynamic interior illustrations and style then the 80s version which is still being sold by Disney. The later/current edition has also removed all of the Eyvind Earl concept pieces that had earlier been displayed so beautifully in the original edition.

Little Man of Disneyland!

Opening Green Screen test

Since it’s difficult for our family to get together during this pandemic as it is for many, Patty and I thought why not adapt some of our favorite picture books into little animatics that we could share via email? “Walt Disney’s Little Man of Disneyland” is one of the lovely Little Golden Books we used to read to our daughters Kimberly and Kristin at bedtime. With Disneyland’s re-opening delayed to help insure the health of guests and cast members, we decided to share that one.

Our adaptations are not animated but more like simple camera moves across the artwork. The credits title card was fun way of sharing the names of the illustrator, author and composer of the music we used.

In some cases we added and repainted the book illustrations a bit to adapt from a book page image to the video format. Some folks were asking what we changed so here are a couple of examples that will help illustrate what we did. Make no mistake though, Dick Kelsey is a legendary Disney artist who did a magnificent job on the original book. Dick Kelsey is one of my favorite artists from the Little Golden Book era of Walt's day and had quite a successful career in feature animation at Disney.

The frame above by the way is from the opening Patty and I created for the adaptations. I modeled the entire set and Patty did textures and animation. I've always wanted to live in the cartoon world so this was my big chance, lol.

This was our first experience using our cheap little homemade green screen and it was a blast! The only thing that is "real" in this shot is me! In case you were wondering, that's Patty's lovely photo over the fireplace.

For those that have been asking, the last shot at the end of the film is INDEED taken from a photograph of the actual tree that Patrick resides within at Disneyland! Yes, it is a real thing so have fun searching it out with the kids!

We hope children (of ALL ages) will enjoy these stories.

Here's the link to the animatic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FrYhgfPXFM

Drawing Max as Powerline

A frame grab from the drawing lesson with my little buddy, Max

When I was asked to donate a drawing lesson of Max as Powerline, I had to say yes! After all, he is a charter member of the original series “Goof Troop”, that I had the honor of creating and developing for Disney Television years ago. He’s also the son of one of my favorite “Fab-Five”- Goofy, Gwarsh!

I only had a weekend to do the rough sketch, video and editing so it’s a very simple clip. Hopefully it will entertain kids (of all ages) that enjoy drawing him. It’s an effort to get their minds off what is happening right now across the world with the Coronavirus, and while they are quarantined at home, remind them how much fun drawing can be. I hope you will enjoy it and I’ll do more of these when I can. Patty and I wish everyone the best.

Please take care and stay safe.

Here's the link:
https://www.facebook.com/DisneyD23/videos/665416564273272/