Look Closer: Concept Art by Tyrus Wong

Each month, The Walt Disney Family Museum staff takes a closer look at an artifact or exhibit within our galleries. Throughout June, the Museum has celebrated Walt Disney’s brilliant and timeless 1942 animated feature, Bambi. In this posting, Museum Interpreter Mary Beth Culler offers an appreciation of the Bambi art of Tyrus Wong.

One of the many things the WDFM Interpreters try to convey to visitors and school groups touring the galleries is the importance of concept art to the early development of a Disney film. To illustrate this point, we often refer to the work done on Bambi by Chinese-American artist, Tyrus Wong. Concept art is a form of illustration whose main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, or mood for something that doesn't yet exist, and Wong accomplished this brilliantly with the sketches and landscape paintings he produced for the beloved 1942 film. 

Art from the collection of the Walt Disney Family Foundation. © Disney.By using soft-edged, ethereal watercolor shapes for the forest scenes rather than the highly detailed renderings that had traditionally been used, Wong introduced a new, more subtle style—a look and feel that appealed to Walt, who wanted to do something different with Bambi.  Wong’s creations evoked emotional responses that were in tune with the beautifully dark and mysterious mood presented in Felix Salten’s, Bambi, A Life in the Woods, and his work was described by fellow artists as a kind of visual poetry.

Five of the original pieces produced by Tyrus Wong during the preproduction phase of Bambi are on display in the Museum's Gallery 5, and were the focus of our June Look Closer presentations. These impressionistic studies of nature demonstrate how Wong championed a different approach to establishing a movie’s signature look. The brush strokes are airy and minimalistic, showing restraint and lack of detail. Rather than completely flesh out the image of falling leaves or a single deer in the woods, for example, they provide visual suggestions of what is to be portrayed. When asked to comment on previous concept art versus what he created for Bambi, Wong said, “Too much detail!  I tried to keep the thing very, very simple and create the atmosphere, the feeling of the forest.”

In addition to the five Wong pieces, the display case devoted to Bambi contains other examples of concept art created for the film by various Disney Studio artists.  What’s immediately evident is that these unnamed artists adopted the Wong style for their sketches, mimicking the simple yet powerful way of illustrating animals and landscapes. According to legendary Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, Tyrus Wong not only inspired the other visual artists working on Bambi, he also set a standard that is still challenging artists today.

Like other sketches and paintings in the Museum’s collection, these treasured pieces of concept art are housed in sealed cases, which provide a controlled environment of temperature and relative humidity. And those that were done in graphite and/or watercolor—mediums particularly susceptible to deterioration—are periodically removed from display and given a “rest” by the Collections Department. 

Mary Beth Culler

Museum Interpreter

Our June screenings of Walt Disney's Bambi end Thursday, with shows at 1:00pm and 4:00pm (except Tuesday) in the state-of-the-art digital theatre at The Walt Disney Family Museum. Tickets are available at the Reception and Member Service Desk at the Museum, or online at www.waltdisney.org.

The Art of Tyrus Wong: Recap

From the Collection of the Walt Disney Family Foundation. ©DisneyThis month, The Walt Disney Family Museum celebrates Walt Disney’s brilliant and timeless 1942 animated feature, Bambi. In this column, Anel Muller and Harvey Newman recap our special event of Saturday, June 11, which focused on the art of Bambi and how it forever shaped animation—and continues to influence many of our favorite films. 

On June 11, 2011, The Walt Disney Family Museum had the great privilege of hosting not only Charles Solomon, noted author and animation historian; Paul Felix, art director at Walt Disney Animation Studios; and Ralph Eggleston, animator, storyboard artist, and production designer at Pixar Animation Studios, but also the incredibly humble and astounding inspirational artist, Tyrus Wong. The lecture unveiled how Tyrus Wong’s vision for Bambi departed from the traditional storybook feel of previous films like Snow White and Pinocchio and how his legacy continues to influence animation artists today.

Tyrus Wong was born in Taishan, Guangdong, China on October 25, 1910. After immigrating to the United States in 1920 with is father, he went on to attend the Otis Art Institute. Tyrus came to the Disney Studio in 1938. He got his start in animation doing the work of an inbetweener, which required him to clean up the rough animation drawings that were done by the lead animator, as well draw the missing images between key poses. Charles Solomon noted that Tyrus had once remarked that his eyes felt like "ping-pong balls on strings" while doing this work. But his work as an inbetweener would be short-lived. As the Studio started to work on Bambi, he saw this as his opportunity to leave the doldrums of inbetweening work. He started creating concept paintings that illustrated his vision for the film. He presented his work to Tom Codrick, and that ultimately led to Tyrus being assigned as a visual designer for Bambi. 

(From L to R): Paul Felix, Tyrus Wong and Ralph Eggleston. Photo by Joseph Driste, courtesy of The Walt Disney Family Museum.Tyrus's art subtly influenced the viewer’s emotions throughout Bambi. The speakers at the lecture referred to his backgrounds as a "caricature of nature." His moody and minimal depictions of the landscape were influenced by his childhood in China, where he would practice calligraphy with his father. When he was out of ink, he would use water on newspaper to improve his brushwork. The classical style of Sung Dynasty landscapes is a direct correlation to Tyrus's depictions of the landscape. For Tyrus and other artists influenced by the Sung Dynasty landscapes, nature is more important than humans, which is why nature is another character in Bambi. He was a master of detail placement and knew how to give the viewer just enough information to subconsciously react to the scene, allowing the backgrounds to enhance the characters and the constant emotional shifts throughout the film. Ralph Eggleston described Bambi as a narrative version of Fantasia.

Tyrus's ability to "perfect the skill of imperfection" has even influenced the digital animation world. Today, most animation is done on a computer and Eggleston spoke of Tyrus's ability to blur and distort the environment in ways that had been overlooked in the beginning of the digital age. He aspired to the talent of Tyrus. During the making of Finding Nemo, he covered his office walls with reproductions of Tyrus's art as inspiration and study for his work. The method, which Tyrus used with the fog and glimmers of light in the forest of Bambi to manipulate the colors and mood, influenced Eggleston stylistic decisions when animating the water in Finding Nemo.

From the Collection of the Walt Disney Family Foundation. ©DisneyPaul Felix also spoke of the Tyrus's influence when he was working on Lilo and Stitch. With Lilo and Stitch, the Disney Studio abandoned the traditional shape-driven look and feel of the films, and returned to the tone set by Wong in Bambi. Once again, the look of the film was softer, subtler, and more heavily focused on abstract shapes and fields of color to help evoke the emotions of the scene. Felix, like Wong, looked at the scenery as a way to enhance emotions and visually persuade the emotion of the story. He spoke to the fact that sharp, crisp backgrounds can distract the viewer and end up competing with the intended focus of the film.

Other recent films, such as The Princess and the Frog and Tangled have used the shape language and compositional influences of Bambi in their designs as well. With the influence of Tyrus and his beautiful depiction of the landscape, animators and artists can use him as a source of inspiration to create and depict emotionally significant works of art.

The lecture concluded with a standing ovation for Tyrus. Although Bambi was the only animated feature on which Tyrus so significantly contributed as a designer, his immense influence in the visual communication of the animated art form continues to reverberate in the industry.

Walt Disney's Bambi is screening every day in June at 1:00pm and 4:00pm (except June 25 & 28) in the state-of-the-art digital theatre at The Walt Disney Family Museum. Tickets are available at the Reception and Member Service Desk at the Museum, or online at www.waltdisney.org.

Tyrus Wong: An Appreciation by John Canemaker

This month, The Walt Disney Family Museum celebrates Walt Disney’s brilliant and timeless 1942 animated feature, Bambi. In this column, we revisit the observations of renowned author, teacher, and Academy Award®-winning animator, John Canemaker, from his 1996 book, Before the Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists, in which he discussed the career of Tyrus Wong. 

Ty Wong flying kites in 2006. © Joe Campana. Used with permission.The conditions must be just right: a bright sun to banish all traces of fog, a wind blowing between eight and ten miles an hour, and a generous stretch of beach without trees or telephone poles. When those conditions are met on certain golden afternoons at certain Santa Monica or Venice oceanfronts, Tyrus Wong launches his amazing visions: a 124-foot centipede with more than 150 segments, a flock of swallows with 40-inch wingspans, giant butterflies, white doves and black swallows, and even a gaggle of angels swoop and glide, dart and hover in the California sky.

Wong’s brilliantly-colored phantoms are kites—large, complex aerodynamic constructions he has designed, built with string, paint, paper and ripstop nylon, and flown since 1978. For the…artist, it is less a hobby than a continuation of his indomitable creative spirit. “I got painted out,” he said of his disinterest in the traditional painting arts after a long and varied artistic career as a watercolorist, muralist, lithographer, Warner Bros. film production illustrator (1942-1968), greeting card designer, and Disney inspirational sketch artist (1938-1941). Now, using the sky as his canvas, Wong continues to make art that comes alive when in motion, much as he did when he drew set designs and storyboards for John Wayne, Joan Crawford, and Paul Newman movies, or concepts for Disney’s Bambi. 

Although Wong considers his work on Bambi to have been “a minor, very small part” of his life, his impact on the film was very large indeed. “He set the color schemes along with the appearance of the forest in painting after painting, hundreds of them, depicting Bambi’s world in an unforgettable way,” acknowledged Ollie Johnston and Frank Tomas in their book on the making of the cartoon feature. “Here at last was the beauty of [Felix] Salten’s writing, created not in script or with character development, but in paintings that captured the poetic feeling that had eluded us for so long…The remarkable paintings of Ty Wong not only inspired the other visual artists, but created a standard that was met by musicians and special effects, too.”

© Disney“The influence Ty had on this film made the film!” concurs Marc Davis, whose subtly expressive animal designs for Bambi were also a major aesthetic breakthrough for the animators. Wong’s art was a mixture of occidental and oriental influences, combining the broad brush, spontaneous California Watercolor style with the contemplative balance of composition, limitation of details, and restraint of traditional Chinese painting. “The Chinese,” wrote E.H. Gombrich, “consider it childish to look for details in pictures and then to compare them to the real world. They want, rather, to find in them the visible traces of the artist’s enthusiasm.”

Today, Tyrus Wong prefers to design and build colorful balsa wood and nylon birds, butterflies, and angels, and to send them sailing heavenward. But only when the wind is just right.

Excerpted from the book Before the Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists by John Canemaker. © 1990 The Walt Disney Company. Reprinted by permission of Disney Editions.

John Canemaker has won an Academy Award®, an Emmy®, and a Peabody Award for his animation, and is an internationally-renowned animation historian and teacher. Canemaker is also a noted author who has written nine books on animation, as well as numerous essays, articles and monographs for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

He began teaching at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1980, and was one of the founders of the animation program. Canemaker is a full tenured professor, who became the program’s executive director in 1988, and served as Acting Chair of the NYU Undergraduate Film and Television Department in 2001-2002.

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Legendary Disney artist Tyrus Wong had a gift for evoking incredible feeling in his art with simple, gestural composition. Walt saw that Tyrus was able to produce exquisite artwork that did not necessarily look like the forest—but rather, felt like the forest. Walt Disney's vision for Bambi and use of Tyrus's work still influences films today. Join us on Saturday, June 11 at 3:00PM as we hear from Charles Solomon, Ralph Eggleston, and Paul Felix about how the art of Bambi forever shaped animation and continues to influence many of our favorite films. 

Walt Disney's Bambi is screening every day in June at 1:00pm and 4:00pm (except Tuesdays, and June 11 & 25) in the state-of-the-art digital theatre at The Walt Disney Family Museum. Tickets are available at the Reception and Member Service Desk at the Museum, or online at www.waltdisney.org.

Tyrus Wong and the Art of "Bambi"

Next month, The Walt Disney Family Museum celebrates Walt Disney’s brilliant and timeless 1942 animated feature, Bambi. In this column, we revisit the observations of legendary Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston from their 1990 book, Walt Disney’s Bambi: The Story and the Film, in which they discuss the work of Tyrus Wong.

Many of the backgrounds we were seeing…were very detailed, almost to the point of looking like photographs, and we were having a serious problem with the unbroken expanse of flat color on the animated adult deer against such paintings. The sketches of the deer made for the story reels were far more than outlines and even had suggestions of shadows falling across the bodies. They were like book illustrations, with bits of shading to give the illusion of solidity, define the shapes, and help display the expressions. How could it be done in animation? We could not use shading on our drawings—everything had to be done in line backed up by a single coat of paint. And how could a background with all the leaves and twigs and details of the forest be balanced against such a large, unrelieved area?

Legendary artist Tyrus Wong, at work in his studio in the 1940s.

The solution came out of the innovative work of one special artist—Tyrus Wong. His paintings, styling sketches, watercolors, and pastels would give a whole new appearance to the picture, distinct from any we had previously given or would ever give any film.

Ty had come to California from China at the age of nine. When he was hired at Disney, studio policy had every newcomer start as a lowly in-betweener, executing the often-tedious drawings that filled out the action between the animator’s key drawings. In Ty’s case, it was not a profitable decision. He not only hated the work, but commented that his eyes were beginning to feel like a couple of tennis balls as he flipped the drawings of Mickey and stared at the light in his drawing board. When he heard that experimental work was being done on Bambi, he worked several nights to gather together samples of what he could do. He had read Felix Salten’s book and “thought the story was very, very nice—the feeling—you can almost smell the pine.” He took his sketches to the art director, Tom Codrick. Like those working for him, Tom had been painting realistically. But when he saw these soft-edged, oriental paintings of a mystical forest, he realized instantly that this was just what was needed to make Bambi a different, artistic picture.

One of Wong's color studies for Bambi. © DisneyIn contrast to the paintings that showed every detail of tiny flowers, broken branches, and fallen logs, Ty had a different approach and certainly one that had never been seen in an animated film before. He explained, “Too much detail! I tried to keep the thing very, very simple and create the atmosphere, the feeling of the forest.” His grasses were a shadowy refuge with just a few streaks of the actual blades; his thickets were soft suggestions of deep woods and patches of light that brought out the rich detail in the trunk of a tree or a log. Groups of delicate trees were shown in silhouette against the mists of early morning rising from the meadow. Every time of day and each mood of the forest was portrayed in a breathtaking manner. An ethereal quality was there. Best of all, Walt was enthusiastic. “I like that indefinite effect in the background—it’s effective. I like it better than a bunch of junk behind them.”

When asked about his style, Ty said, “Halfway between the West and the East—but I can’t help that, I’m born with it.” He set the color schemes along with the appearance of the forest in painting after painting, hundreds of them, depicting Bambi’s world in an unforgettable way. Here at last was the beauty of Salten’s writing, created not in a script or with character development, but in paintings that captured the poetic feeling that had eluded us for so long.

Excerpted from the book Walt Disney's Bambi: The Story and the Film by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.

© 1990 The Walt Disney Company. Reprinted by permission of Disney Editions.

Legendary Disney artist Tyrus Wong had a gift for evoking incredible feeling in his art with simple, gestural composition. Walt saw that Tyrus was able to produce exquisite artwork that did not necessarily look like the forest—but rather, felt like the forest. Walt Disney's vision for Bambi and use of Tyrus's work still influences films today. Join us on Saturday, June 11 at 3:00pm, as we hear from Charles Solomon, Ralph Eggleston, and Paul Felix about how the art of Bambi forever shaped animation and continues to influence many of our favorite films.

Walt Disney's Bambi is screening every day in June at 1:00pm and 4:00pm (except Tuesdays, and June 11 & 25) in the state-of-the-art digital theatre at The Walt Disney Family Museum. Tickets are available at the Reception and Member Service Desk at the Museum, or online at www.waltdisney.org.