Subject of exhibit is Keane

Animation fans take note -- famed Walt Disney feature animation

director Glen Keane will be at Laguna College of Art & Design from 6

to 8 p.m. Sept. 10 in honor of his current exhibit at the college,

“Glen Keane Sketchbooks,” which runs through Sept. 27.

Keane is renowned for creating Disney characters Ariel in “The

Little Mermaid”, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan and the Beast from

“Beauty and the Beast.”

Laguna College animation chair Aubry Mintz has been working on

getting a Keane exhibit at the gallery for three years. Assistant

animation professor Diana Coco-Russell facilitated with her 12 years

of animation experience at Disney, including her first film “Beauty

and the Beast” with Keane.

Mintz said artists in the animation industry often have millions

of drawings that they’ve created that never get seen.

“I called Keane’s assistant at Disney and it just so happened

Disney had a show of his sketchbook work,” Mintz said. “So it worked

out great.”

Keane as well as other legendary animators work is studied at the

college.

“You can see how he works and thinks,” Mintz said pointing at

Keane’s work. “You can see the emotion and force.”

Keane said that thanks to the encouragement of Eric Larsen, he

developed the habit of bringing a sketchbook with him wherever he

went.

Keane learned when he started working at Disney that seeing the

everyday things in the world around him is the best source of

inspiration.

“Behind any great art are observations, observations of life,”

Keane said. “Animation still has roots in real life.”

He uses the expression and attitudes he observes in real life to

create the same life like qualities in his animation.

At Disney the unwritten rule is that an artist doesn’t sign their

artwork because it is such a team effort Keane said.

“In a sense when you’re working on an animation film, you lose a

bit of individual artistic expression,” Keane said. “All I’ve ever

wanted to be is an artist, painter and a sculptor. Animation is a

combination of all arts; it’s the ultimate art form.”

Keane said the first sketchbook entry he ever did was in London

while he was working on “Beauty and the Beast.” He wanted to capture

the surroundings he was experiencing, the visceral elements taking

place at that moment in time.

“I had never been to a place like this before...this fountain and

foggy image, the London fog -- I [captured] it using charcoal,” Keane

said. “And I just signed my name to it. There was no bolt of

lightning or thunder; I just put my name on it and it was very

important. It seems like a little thing, but there was something

really freeing about that.

“It reminded me of who I am; I’m Glen Keane, an artist and this is

my art.”

He said his sketches fueled his animation from that point on.

“Animation has to be as true and real as sketchbooks are,” Keane

said.

Of the characters Keane has created, he said he can relate best to

the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast.”

“I think there’s a little bit of the beast in all of us; it was

freeing,” he said. “It was so much fun to animate him.”

Keane’s biggest influence was his father Bill Keane, the creator

of the syndicated comic, “The Family Circus.”

Keane is looking forward to returning to Laguna Beach for his

exhibit at the Laguna College.

“I started going to Laguna Beach in 1959; I spent a lot of my

childhood, growing up, spending summers there,” Keane said.

The first sketches he did that caught the eye of Disney were

created in Laguna Beach.

Keane is currently directing Disney’s first computer generated

fairytale, “Rapunzel Unbraided,” which expected to be in theaters in

2007.

Laguna College of Art and Design is at 2222 Laguna Canyon Road.

For information, call (949) 376-6000.