Tag: Sleeping Beauty

September 1, 2022

The Art of Sleeping Beauty: the artists, animators, & history of Disney’s classic film

ArtInsights has some strange and wonderful connections to the art of Sleeping Beauty, and further, to the artists who were integral to making the Disney classic. This blog will talk about that, and also offer a few great images of Sleeping Beauty art for Disney collectors!

First, take a look at the original trailer from 1959:

In July of 2022, we went to San Diego Comic-Con, producing and moderating a panel with some wonderful animation professionals, two of whom worked on Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Both made a significant contribution to the art of Sleeping Beauty. Jane Baer, who was a special guest of the convention, and was awarded the Ink Pot Award for her contributions to the animation industry, and Floyd Norman, “Disney Legend”, Winsor McCay and Ink Pot Award winner, went to the Art Center in Pasadena together in the 50s. They then wound up at Disney Studios at the same time, working on Sleeping Beauty with some of the most storied, famous artists ever to work at Disney.

Here for the first time, we publish the video of our panel “Legends Talk Animation”, where Jane and Floyd dish about the goings-on during the production.

Leslie Combemale of ArtInsights moderates the panel with Sleeping Beauty artists Jane Baer and Floyd Norman, with insights from animation historian and author Jerry Beck!

This panel doesn’t just talk about Sleeping Beauty, it goes into the many other projects that became Disney, Hanna Barbera, and Filmation classics, on which Jane Baer and Floyd Norman had a major impact!

That’s not the only connection we at ArtInsights have with Sleeping Beauty. In 1999, we were fortunate enough to welcome Mary Costa, the voice of Briar Rose, to ArtInsights for an event. People say you should never meet your heroes, lest they fall short. I can’t say I was particularly a fan of hers, or felt one way or the other about her before I met her, but I was a fan of the film. It’s truly beautiful, and represents all the best of Disney animation, in invention and story, and has traveled through time really well, keeping a magical quality that has never faded. Once I met Mary, though, and spent time with her, I learned she was one of the most luminous, positive, joyful, and, I’ll even say, “magical” people, that I’ve ever met.

a promotional photo of Mary Costa from around the time of Sleeping Beauty. She already had a reputation as an opera singer when she was hired as the voice of Aurora/Briar Rose in 1952.

As someone who was raised Christian and had a bad taste in my mouth from my own experiences, Mary Costa showed me there are open-hearted Christians out there, who truly walk the path of what they believe Jesus did, showing kindness, openheartedness, compassion, and love. While it didn’t bring me back into the fold, she was revelatory. There ARE a lot of “followers of Christ” out there, and she is definitely one of them!

Leslie, Mary Costa, and Michael at the art of Sleeping Beauty event at ArtInsights in 1999.

Here was my experience with her, and it is very personal: Our event was planned for Saturday, June 19th, 1999. She was arriving on June 18th. My sister Jane had been killed on December 17th of 1998, and the family had planned to bury her ashes on her birthday, which was June 18th. I called Mary a few days before she was arriving, to let her know why I wouldn’t be picking her up from the airport. Instead of being disappointed or put off, or just getting off the phone, she immediately asked me if it would be helpful for her to come to the event. She said she wanted to be present for our family. She said this as someone who had never met me. I was touched, and taken aback, but thanked her, and told her we’d just see her on the day of the event. We met a few hours before it started. She wanted to say a prayer beforehand, and asked that we all hold hands. I was cynical, and thought, “oh boy…” but she brought my sister Jane up, asked that she be there in spirit, and asked what other religions were represented in the circle. She called upon all the other belief systems, INCLUDING WICCAN(!) and then prayed that we all be blessed, and asked for a positive experience. When my family came, she stopped whatever else she was doing, and spoke to them about my sister. She told my dad she was honored he had come, and meant it. I think they even shed a few tears together, and this was when the gallery was full of people. For Mary, it was all about connection, first and foremost.

Just last night I went down a YouTube rabbit hole of interviews with Mary, and noticed again how well she listened and focused on those around her. It has been her gift a long time!

Mary Costa being fawned over by a true Sleeping Beauty fan, UK chat show host Paul O’Grady.

A Mary Costa signature from our event. It’s the handwriting of a princess!

Once the event was over, we went to dinner together. It was just Mary and me. She had been married to a famous producer in the 50s and 60s, and talked about spending weekends with the rat pack. She shared great stories about Frank, Sammy, and Dean. She also shared, in whispered tones, she had a huge crush on Van Johnson for years. Then we went to see Disney’s Tarzan on the opening night. One of the main characters’ names was Jane, and the character looked like my sister, which we both thought was wonderful. She had lots of opinions about the voice acting and story, and it was all fascinating! What a trip it was to watch a Disney feature with one of the classic voices in Disney animation!

Perhaps some of you have met someone you think of as an “angel on earth”. I’d never really thought of that expression before meeting Mary Costa, and honestly I’ve never met anyone else who I think fits that description, but Mary Costa definitely does. Now when you think of Briar Rose, you can imagine that character being voiced by a truly wonderful person.

My other connection to the art of Sleeping Beauty was more accidental. I was traveling with movie poster artist Steve Chorney to his home outside of Santa Barbara, a place I’d never been. We drove together in his convertible, headed to the place he’d kept some of his classic original movie poster art. When we got there and drove into the driveway, I noticed a huge, gorgeous tree at the house across the street. I remarked to Steve that it looked like one of the trees in Sleeping Beauty. He told me that Sleeping Beauty concept and background artist Eyvind Earle had lived there, and that was where he had been inspired for the trees he drew in his work for Sleeping Beauty. That tree had been his inspiration!

You can see more about Eyvind Earle and his art in this wonderful, classic Disney film, which shows four Disney artists painting a tree. There’s a lot of art of Sleeping Beauty in this film…You should DEFINITELY watch this!:

I should have asked what tree it was, and taken a picture. I did neither. I was too overwhelmed! There, before my eyes, was the tree that we all know from Disney’s classic film! I guess it was one time when my Disney geekiness took over.

How much do you know about the art of Sleeping Beauty, or about the film itself? I’ve talked about it before in an ArtInsights blog from 2015 HERE.

Sleeping Beauty is based on a European fairy tale, the earliest version of which was in the 1300s. The more famous version of it, by Charles Perrault (who also penned Cinderella) was released late in the 1600s as La Belle au Boite Dormant. The Brothers Grimm also offered a version in the 1800s called Little Briar Rose. Of course there have been many versions told since then, including the famous ballet by Tchaikovsky in 1890, which was Disney’s favorite ballet, and one of his favorite pieces of classical music.

The 1959 Disney film was directed by Les Clark, Eric Larson, and Wolfgang Reitherman. The voices, in addition to Mary Costa’s starring role as Briar Rose, were supplied by a number of Disney favorites. Maleficent was voiced by Eleanor Audley, who also voiced Lady Tremaine in Cinderella. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather were voiced, respectively, by Verna Felton (who also played Briar Rose’s mother, Queen Leah, the fairy godmother in Cinderella, and the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland), famed radio actress Barbara Jo Ellen, and Barbara Luddy (who played Lady in Lady and the Tramp and Kanga in Winnie the Pooh).

The art of Sleeping Beauty is unique in Disney history, in that it was a time of great experimentation, and also the last film that was completely hand-inked, so there was a level of meticulousness and specificity that is unparalleled. The hand-inking in Sleeping Beauty was more intricate and complicated than any of Disney film before or since. The drawings of the characters, especially Briar Rose herself (whether by herself or with other characters) were so intricate, the animators sometimes only completed one a day. That’s how much work these characters required! It definitely shows in the art left behind from the film.

Enjoy this great short film about the making of Sleeping Beauty:

Once Upon a Dream: The Making of Sleeping Beauty

Here are some new original pieces of the art of Sleeping Beauty available now at ArtInsights:

Original production cel of Briar Rose from Sleeping Beauty

An original production cel of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty

An original concept drawing of Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty

Fauna production cel from Sleeping Beauty

An original production drawing of Briar Rose and Philip from Sleeping Beauty

Production art of an imprisoned Prince Phillip, and the 3 Fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather

Briar Rose

The Mock Prince

The above two images are sold as a set for $1800. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

You can see all the original art of Sleeping Beauty available for a limited time on the ArtInsights gallery website as well as the limited editions currently available, by going to the art of Sleeping Beauty page HERE.

September 23, 2015

Sleeping Beauty Production Cels: Why is original art from Sleeping Beauty is so beautiful?

Our new original production cel of Briar Rose

In the course of my career selling animation art and advocating for the value of animation art as a legitimate art form, i’ve discovered collectors of original production art, and even Disney interpretive art, tend to gravitate to movies that are either firsts or lasts. Sometimes they are aware of the history, and sometimes they are responding to something they feel or see, not knowing the technical or historical reasons.

For example, there are lots of Snow White lovers, not only because it is the first full length feature for Walt Disney Studios in 1937. Few dispute that it is a masterpiece of invention based on a great old story, that is very important to the history of film.

Our new original production drawing of Snow White

The fact that it is the first for Disney feature animation, though, means at the time there was a huge amount of experimentation and innovation. Character design made leaps forward, so that meant the villain, the Queen and her disguise, the witch, the dwarfs, the animals, and Snow White herself were full of little design elements that made the cels used to animate them fun to look at. The way the outlines of the characters on the cels were hand-inked, and the airbrush used to enhance the look of movement or “alive quality”, inadvertently made the production cels beautiful pieces of art. Of course Walt figured that out and sold them as art at the movie’s premiere.

At the Snow White premiere, picture courtesy of Davelandweb.com

Although not the masterpiece Snow White is as a film, 1959’s Sleeping Beauty also has a slew of collectors and fans, and deservedly so. It is the last hand-inked feature film in Disney’s history. For that reason, the studio both went all out in their use of ink colors and enhancements, and experimented with the new technique of xerography they hoped to use in their next feature, 101 Dalmatians being released in 1960. For those of you who don’t know, xerography copies the original drawing onto the cel with a machine, making hand-inking the outline of the characters unnecessary. This took far less time, but also, they argued at the time, assured the integrity of the artists’ finished drawings, because they would be transferred exactly as they were drawn, onto the cel.

A model sheet of Briar Rose

Briar Rose and her fabulous hair, hand-inked by the Ink and Paint Department at Disney

Here’s the thing: Hand-inking, on animation cels, is just lovely. What I tell people who are wondering through ArtInsights for the first time curious to learn a little about production art, if you stand back and look at two cels, one with hand-inking, and the other with xerographic line, the hand-inked cel pops right off the wall. You can see the character so much better! The character’s outline being so clearly defined, and often in a variety of colors, adds dimension to the character itself. The problem of course, is that if you love 101 Dalmatians, you have to embrace the first that was using xerography to outline all the characters in the movie. To be fair, it has its own retro charm. However, one of the reasons collectors of Sleeping Beauty are so committed to that film is because the hand-inking points to the end of an era, and as such goes out in a blaze of glory, and the cels are flamboyantly hand-inked to the point of artistry. I think the character designers and inker painters knew it would be the last time they would make such a strong mark on an animated feature, and they just put all their heart and soul into the art.

Sleeping Beauty fans love the film for lots of reasons. The voice talent is extraordinary. Mary Costa as Princess Aurora was wonderful casting, because she could bring her background as an opera star to the experience. Vera Felton, at this point a Disney veteran, having been tapped for the fairy godmother in Cinderella and the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, among others, voiced Flora. Radio voice star Eleanor Audley had voiced Lady Tremaine in Cinderella, and absolutely rocked it as Maleficent. That character is beloved not just for her design, but certainly for the way she was voiced!

The voice of Briar Rose, Mary Costa

The animation artists involved in Sleeping Beauty point to a particularly fruitful time at the studio. The character animation is some of the best in Disney history. Marc Davis animated both Princess Aurora and Maleficent, Milt Kahl worked on Prince Philip, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston handed Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, and Wolfgang Reitherman worked on the dragon. For those of you who know these names, that’s a lot of Disney genius in one place. Eyvind Earle, Sleeping Beauty’s art director, was known as a masterful background stylist, and invented much of the look of the movie’s backgrounds, especially the ubiquitous mid-century modern trees, modeled after those that surrounded him living in California.

A Sleeping Beauty background by Eyvind Earle

Though Sleeping Beauty didn’t succeed at first at the box office, it has since gone on to be seen as one of Disney’s best. Not that animation collectors who search avidly for good production cels from the film care about such things…they can’t be convinced by nay-sayers because the cels themselves are just so gorgeous.

A Disneyland art corner original production cel of Prince Phillip and Samson we just got at the gallery.

That brings us to a cel I just got in ArtInsights (you can click on the top pic to go to the page in the gallery site) One of the scenes collectors look for as part of their Sleeping Beauty animation art collection is a great cel of Briar Rose in the forest. Obviously collectors look for essential moments that represent the key scenes moving the story forward, and Briar Rose wandering through the landscape, singing to her mock prince, and meeting Prince Philip, definitely qualifies! I see lots of Briar Rose cels. There is a crazy variance in price, according to little things and big things like

Are her eyes open? Does she have her basket? Can you see the curls in her hair? (hand-inking at its best!!) Is she full figure but you can see her face well and she has a good expression? Are there animals present? Is she dancing? Is she dancing with the prince? (unlike the end of the movie, that would be comprised of, in this scene, two cels, not one with both of them on it like the ‘dance among the clouds’) has the art been restored? (I try not to sell restored art) is it in a hand prepared background? Is it a full cel or is it an art corner piece?

The Sleeping Beauty production cel we have right now has a hand-prepared background on it. Created by an artist who has worked at Disney, this artist captured the essence of Eyvind Earle’s style. So much so, that i’ve been afraid about making sure the provenance stays intact and should the art ever leave the hands of whoever I sell it to, it is clearly indicated that this is NOT from 1959. It helps that this artist created the background on archival mat board and it has a repeated stamp all over the back CRESCENT, CRESCENT, CRESCENT! (the company that makes those mats) The cel is unrestored, and yes, you can see her hair. For my part, Briar Rose cels are some of my favorite production cels because of her hair. Realize, now, that her hand-inked hair is done 24 cels per second through the entire movie. THAT’S CRAZY! No wonder they switched to xerography!

One of my favorite parts of my job being a gallery owner is finding original cels that truly capture the spirit of a character. Knowing that production cels were photographed and used the create the film, a film that has been seen by many millions of people, just brings me such joy. It’s like animation history, and indeed art history, in your hands, or on your walls. It also brings me joy knowing there are like-minded people out there who also love animation art. Being in the industry since 1988, I saw a time when few knew what the heck it even was! I still have people who come in and think it’s all kid stuff, but I hope with blogs like these I can change a few minds, or reaffirm the love of cartoons and animation art in a few collectors, and even more Disney lovers!

For ArtInsights, i’m Leslie Combemale.

These are just thoughts and musings of a gallery owner and lover or art and animation. There are lots of books that will go far more in-depth about the history of animation and Disney. Please feel free to ask questions below or email the gallery if you are looking for Sleeping Beauty art or animation film art of any kind!

Further reading on Sleeping Beauty production cels, Sleeping Beauty the feature film, and the history of Disney animation:

Sleeping Beauty Platinum dvd (commentary and extra info)

http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Beauty-Two-Disc-Platinum-Costa/dp/B0013ND30M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442971121&sr=8-1&keywords=sleeping+beauty+platinum

An article on Ink and Paint:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/03/disney-animation-girls-201003

Also, stay tuned for an upcoming book by Mindy Johnson called Ink and Paint: The Women of Disney’s Animation Department!

Once Upon A Time: Sleeping Beauty History

http://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Dream-Perraults-Maleficent/dp/1423199022/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442971371&sr=8-1&keywords=sleeping+beauty+disney+history

Before Ever After: Animation Lectures

http://www.amazon.com/Before-Ever-After-Lectures-Animation/dp/1484710819/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442971425&sr=8-2&keywords=disney+history

Demystifying Disney History

http://www.amazon.com/Demystifying-Disney-History-Feature-Animation/dp/1623567440/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442971539&sr=8-2&keywords=history+of+disney+animation