Saturday, January 18, 2014

On Saturdays, We Share Art

I haven't looked at much art since school ended for Winter Break.  For awhile, I chose not to analyze, compare, or interpret.  Art is exhausting, guys!

I was going through some buzzfeed lists the other day and came across these mixes of Disney Heroines and Villains by J. Scott Campbell.  At first, I wasn't sure about them, but they ended up growing on me.

Campbell's aesthetic choice to leave the villains monochromatic pulled these pieces together for me.  I think if it were all colored it, it would be difficult to differentiate between the subjects. 
My favorite is of Ursala and Ariel, and not just because Ariel is my second favorite princess! We are naturally drawn to human face and in all of these drawings, there are at least two.  Ursala's body creates an s-like line that guides the viewer's eye from Ursala's face, down to Ariel's and then back up. Unfortunately, not all of the drawings have such great composition. 

Campbell's choice in placing Aurora upside down makes me uneasy, probably because our brains see this as a red flag.  This might be better if she was sideways or something.  Also, I don't understand why her neck is so long...

On the bright side! I love the way her hair was drawn.  All flowy across the bottom of Maleficent's dress/coat/whatever.  It's beautiful!
Remember how I mentioned us being attracted to faces?  Cinderella's drawing has a few too many.  I understand that there are multiple villains, but it could have been done a little differently.  I can feel the competition between the evil step family and a larger, colorful Cinderella as my eyes dart back and forth.  It's not a very pleasant composition and on top of that, the brightness from the glass slipper is very distracting as well.  

Rapunzel's isn't horrible, but there is nothing spectacular I can really comment about it either.  So instead, I'm going to use this time to ask: Why do all of the princesses look so oily?  Maybe spend a little more time on the shading?  Mmk?
I'm not really a Snow White fan.  The movie or this picture.  First of all, her fact is too triangular.  Snow White generally has a round face.  Campbell obviously didn't like that.  Also, I can't get over the fact that the Queen appears twice.   It's kind of creepy actually.  She's in the main picture and then again, at the bottom.  The hand that is giving Snow White the apple.  A different scene probably would have been a better choice for the Snow White portion.  Perhaps when she actually eats the apple?

And then there is Alice.  Thank you, Campbell for choosing to make the Queen of Hearts red and white rather than the black and white!  Makes so much more sense.  Also, I really like how Alice seems to be looking at the Queen.  The connection between subjects helps the viewer stay in the piece rather than falling out and getting lost.
Overall, I thought these particular pieces were pretty interesting, but I didn't really like any of J. Scott Campbell's other work that I saw.  These were much more simplistic that what seemed to be his usual style.

What do you think of these Disney mashups?

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2 comments:

Elyse said...

Pretty cool!

Alice said...

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