Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Gazing at the Castle


I designed a number of tapestries for Auberge de Cendrillon (Cinderella Restaurant) in Disneyland park, Paris. Most of the tapestries ended up in a room that was a little more rustic than the entry and the other main dining room. In an attempt at storytelling I decided that this more rustic space needed to focus on Cinderella’s domestic life, before she went to the ball.

Pictured here is my line art for one of the tapestries in the room. Since some guests would never make it into the other dining room to see the murals depicting the end of the story, this piece would have to be able to stand alone offering the promise of what Cinderella had been dreaming of.

The art is inspired by the sequence in the film just after Cinderella believes she has lost her chance for going to the ball and before her Fairy Godmother arrives to correct the situation. Cinderella gazes out of her window at the castle all aglow for the night’s festivities. In the film the girl is looking out of her window; first in an over-the-shoulder shot of the castle, and next looking at her face. An earlier scene showed her friends listening to her sing. For the tapestry I took the artistic license of incorporating several moments into a single scene. A bit of foreshadowing is created by intertwining the pumpkins vines into the boarder.

I had the good fortune of access to animation research and I worked from animator’s drawings to ensure that each character is in model to the original intent. Although I expected to be art directing Julie Svendsen in the painting I still added artist notes for reference. Fortunately Julie did another beautiful painting for this.

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