Weekend Inspiration

As we head into the long holiday weekend, I thought it’d be nice to take a moment and share some inspiring images I’ve run across this week. Most of the artists represented below work in animation, though a couple work in consumer products at Disney.

Lou Romano offers a sneak peak from a personal animated short he’s currently working on that’s based on the poem “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Quick sketches by Will Finn of his two young sons.

Four superb gouache paintings of LA scenery by Sam Michlap.

Stephane Kardos is sketching on his iPhone(!) here and here.

Great production and development artwork throughout Luc Desmarchelier’s blog (make sure to browse the archives). He even makes films like Road to El Dorado and Spirit look enticing which is no cakewalk.

This piece by Matt Cruickshank is one of the single best pieces of stylized illustration I’ve seen in a long time. The inventiveness and playfulness is matched only by the sophistication of color, pattern and composition. Certain parts of it remind me of Stuart Davis too.

I don’t think there’s any animation fan left online who’s not aware of the Totoro Forest Project taking place next month at Pixar and the Cartoon Art Museum, but I have to link to the project’s blog, which is filled with quality work like the piece above by Mike Lee.