Disney, Mary BlairFebruary 28, 2006 10:45 am
Mary Blair - CINDERELLA (1950)
Below is a never-before-published concept of the stepsisters from CINDERELLA (1950) with incredibly fun and inventive character shapes. Perhaps the design wasn’t appropriate for a traditional Disney feature like CINDERELLA but it’s too bad they couldn’t figure out a way to use these type of designs in the Disney shorts. This piece was actually in my book until a couple weeks ago when we realized that some of the sections had been sequenced wrong and I had to remove eight double-page spreads to bring the book back down to 200 pages. But that’s why there’s this blog.
Those long johns are to die for!
Comment by eliane — February 28, 2006 @ 11:27 am
Muchas Gracias Amid! I never saw an original of Master Mary, in these generous scans one can see the gouache and the paper texture.
My favorite in the Canemaker book was always the stepsisters made almost without pushing up the pencil.
Comment by Ernesto Melo — February 28, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
thanks so much for posting this Amid–
Mary Blair is really quite amazing.
it’s a shame you have to cut stuff from the book.
sixteen pages! still, i’m looking forward to the other 200!
Comment by nick sung — February 28, 2006 @ 1:18 pm
I find I’m just staring at the carpet, the drapes, the values–and that’s not even scratching the surface of the overall character impact!
Blair has been so referenced and trumpeted that she’d be overexposed–IF she was a whit less than what she was, which really is authentic genius. As it is, you just can’t get enough. What an artist.
Comment by Jenny — February 28, 2006 @ 1:39 pm
Beautiful! Thanks for posting her wonderful artwork.
Comment by israel — February 28, 2006 @ 4:12 pm
Eight spreads! Grrrr! That must have been a pretty tough day when you got the news. I wish Canemaker’s Blair book had more unseen stuff like this in it!
Comment by woodrow phoenix — March 1, 2006 @ 1:18 am
Wonderful stuff, Amid. Thanks for sharing with us!
Comment by Ward — March 1, 2006 @ 10:14 pm
they’re lovely — i’m glad you’ve posted them.
Comment by bran — March 19, 2006 @ 4:19 pm