Magic, Color, Flair

September 11, 2014 Nina Penalosa5 Comments

The Walt Disney Family Museum‘s Magic, Color, Flair: The World of Mary Blair art exhibit in San Francisco closed last weekend, but I was able to go 3 weeks before it made its grand exit! I had been dying to go to this exhibit since they first announced it last year, so I made sure my bum got down to the museum because I’m completely in love and in awe of Mary Blair’s art! I’m sure I’ve mentioned what a huge fan I am of her on numerous occasions here, but I digress.

If you’re not familiar with her, she’s very well known for her bright and cheery concept art for Disney movies (Saludos Amigos, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan), designing It’s a Small World (yes, that ride that you either love or hate at Disneyland. And I wore a Small World inspired outfit for the exhibit too which included my It’s a Small World bag by LeSportsac!), and illustrating children’s books (notably I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss).

Magic, Color, Flair was a retrospective of her work which was utterly fascinating because I’ve only really ever been exposed to the art she’s done for Disney and children’s books. Her earlier work was gorgeous and vibrant, and a bit more realistic than the whimsical art that I grew to adore (you’ll see down below).

I went snap-happy with my camera and took pictures of EVERYTHING. So hopefully people who would’ve love to have gone but couldn’t make it may stumble upon this post. And I hope you all enjoy it too, my little ponies! 🙂

In case you’re wondering what the small text by her photograph says:

Mary Blair (1911-1978) was one of Walt Disney’s most original, beloved, and influential art directors. A protean and prolific painter, designer, and colorist, she found artistic expression in a variety of media, including film production designs; fine art watercolors, print illustrations and advertisements: and large-scale, three-dimensional theme park attractions.

The aim of Magic Color Flair: the world of Mary Blair is to reveal and explore Blair’s artistic process and development. The most obvious aspect of her body of work is sparkling graphic inventiveness and a brilliant color sense that dazzles the eye. But there is also in her art an emotional component – an empathetic identification with characters and situations — that appeals directly to the heart. Disney animation features director Wilfred Jackson’s comment touches upon that a special element in Blair’s creations. The exhibition investigates the sources of her art’s visual and emotional qualities — which melded together, make Blair’s work uniquely appealing.

The nearly two hundred works shown here offer a full and balanced overview of Blair’s almost half century of achievements before, during, and after her Walt Disney tenure.

– John Canemaker
Exhibition Curator

I’m not able to show you the nearly two hundred works that I took pictures of, but I did my best to include the pieces that I enjoyed and to also make it feel as if you saw the exhibit yourself 🙂

The clipping next to this horse design says:

Miss Mary Robinson, second year student at Chouinard Art School experienced the thrill of a lifetime when she picked up a current issue of a national magazine to find on the back cover advertisement her winning design in the annual Art Alliance competition.

The competition, which is national in scope, is conducted in the spring but this is the first time that the design had been made public by the company for which it was made. Miss Robinson’s work is called the Trojan Horse design and was made for bath mat, bath towel, small towel, and face cloth for a towel company. She received a $100 award and she competed with thousands of art students and professional artists as well.

According to Mrs. Chouinard, director of the school, the purpose of the competition is to build up interest among artists in this country in types of commercial and industrial design which heretofore have been done during have been done mostly by Europeans. This is the fifth time that a student of this school had won first prize in this competition.

^ This is the cover of a music book and I actually found a beaten up copy of it in my parent’s garage last year! SQUEE!!!

In 1962, Blair created paper sculptures for department store Bonwit Teller’s display windows. Below is one of the sculptures she designed.

Cheers,
Nina

geek style

The Snow Show

April 3, 2013 Nina Penalosa14 Comments

outfit details – skirt + hairbow: H&M // blazer: Living Doll (Crossroads Trading Co. find) // dress: BeBop // belt: Xhileration // boots: Steve Madden // necklace: Once Upon a Smorgasbord (buy similar here) // glasses: Derek Cardigan (buy here)

Since Tim and I both had Monday off, we headed to the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco to check out the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Creation of a Classic exhibit. The show consisted of original concept art from the film and I’m such a nerd for that kind of stuff! Well, I’m a nerd for pretty much anything Disney, but I digress. Concept art from Disney movies are absolutely stunning, so it was an amazing experience to be able to see some of these sketches up close and personal. The details on some of them are incredible — if you look close enough you can see each pencil stroke the artist did and see just how hard they pressed their pencil against the paper.

I also got to learn a few things about the film that I never even knew about (and I know a lot about Disney)! Though Snow White is a beloved classic family film, Walt Disney originally intended that the movie be for adults. He told a journalist, “Before seven or eight, a child shouldn’t be in a theater at all. But I didn’t make the picture for children. I made it for adults — for the child that exists in all adults.”

Upon learning that Snow White was originally created for adults, I now understand why it scared me sh!tless as a child! I still like to refer to Snow White as my favorite “scary movie” or “horror film.” Hell, even the ride at Disneyland scares me! In my defense, it is called Snow White’s Scary Adventure, so… yeah. I think the Evil Queen is absolutely terrifying. Her transformation scene still gives me the heebie-jeebies, and during the exhibit I learned that artists studied the the transformation of Dr. Jekyll in order to truly get the Evil Queen’s done just right.

And of course, I had to dress accordingly to our trip to the museum by wearing the Snow White necklace I made featuring concept art by Gustaf Tenggren, whose art was shown and used on the banners and posters to promote the exhibit (up-close shot of necklace pictured below). I still have a similar one available in my Etsy store 🙂

If you find yourself in San Francisco before the 14th this month, definitely make a trip down to the museum. The show is insanely gorgeous, so definitely check it out if you can!

Cheers,
Nina

out & about

EPICAL EPICNESS: Part 1

October 16, 2011 Nina Penalosa4 Comments

dynamo park mosaic snake mission san francisco — I’m tired of these mother effing snakes in my mother effing park! Oh wait… no I’m not.

Yesterday Tim and I went to San Francisco for an UBER EPIC ADVENTURE! First we went to Dynamo Donuts in the Mission, then headed to The Walt Disney Family Museum, and then watched Drive. More on Disney and Drive later. Let’s talk about donuts for a minute, okay? Yeah, that’s right. I’m talkin’ ’bout food again! I’ve always wanted to try a maple bacon donut ever since I saw the Maple Bacon Bar at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland while watching the Travel Channel (or was it Food Network?). A little while after that, either my sister or my aunts told me about Dynamo Donuts in San Francisco and how they had a maple bacon apple donut and bunch of other fancy schmancy flavors. I drooled over the menu on their site and finally went for the first nearly a year ago with Tim before we watched Broken Bells in Oakland.

dynamo donuts san francisco — This is the face of a very happy man.

I don’t know, there’s just something about these donuts. I’ve only been there a few times since the Mission was a bit of a ways away from my [former] house in Daly City. Tim and I had been talking about our withdrawals from Dynamo for the LONGEST time. And we finally made plans to go yesterday! It was a journey that was long overdue.

passion fruit milk chocolate dynamo donuts san francisco — Passion Fruit Milk Chocolate is one of my favorite flavors. *drool*

Every time we go, we take our goods to the park next door and run around the giant mosaic snake, which we have named Horatio. There were tons of little kids in the park yesterday, so we couldn’t go ape shit like we normally do. And we also learned that there’s a water fountain that you can run through in the middle of Horatio! Crazyness.

The first time we played there, there were only a couple of kids and one dad went up to us and said, “Are you here with any children?” Tim told him, “No, but we’re kids at heart.” The dad totally didn’t go for it though. He basically tried to kick us out since we were 2 twenty-somethings running around and jumping off of a giant snake. I mean… we were upstaging the kids in the fun factor. They were just sitting there picking their noses. Okay, maybe they weren’t. But they most certainly didn’t look like they were having as much fun as Tim and I.

wonder woman polly pocket dc comics — Sometimes I like to take toys with me to document the places I go.

I pretty much had a food orgasm when I bit into my Apricot Cardamom donut. Why can’t donuts like these be made available everywhere?! F*ck Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts! Actually, I’ve never had Dunkin’ Donuts, but I’m willing to bet all the money in my bank account (which isn’t much) that Dynamo Donuts is way better than them.

I wrote a more detailed review of Dynamo Donut for Imaginary Battles, including my favorite flavors and how you need to get yo ass there early! If you want to know a bit more about these holey pieces of awesomeness, you can read my review here.

Part Deux of EPICAL EPICNESS is coming up in a bit, stay tuned…

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outfit details: