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Diane Faye's avatar

This was great, Zoungy! And good luck at the workshop tomorrow, I hope you have a good time with gouache and invoking the creative spirit of Mary Blair. I don’t know if I mentioned it before but you may like the Illustration Department Podcast and Substack (maybe Patreon too?). @illustrationdept

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Zoungy Kligge's avatar

Thank you Diane. I follow Illustration Dept and have enjoyed the articles they publish! Have you seen the YouTube channel Children of the Craft? She has several Mary Blair videos you may enjoy.

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Diane Faye's avatar

I haven’t seen that channel. I’ll check it out!

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Jennie Morris's avatar

Fly Larry Air to take the course on Mary Blair.

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Jennie Morris's avatar

Wish I could join and look forward to seeing some of the work!

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Zoungy Kligge's avatar

And I wish you could join! How cool would that be, you and me in art class again????

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Zoungy Kligge's avatar

I would fly Larry Air to take a course on Mary Blair any day!

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Claudia McGill's avatar

Wow, this sounds so interesting (both the artist and your workshop. I wonder if you'll do it again, I can't attend this session, but I'd love to participate...) I recently read a book called The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt that covered the role of women artists in the Disney world. I will need to go back and read it again to see what it says of Mary Blair. And...the illustration you showed from a children's book in 1964, at that time I was just learning to read in 1st grade, and this illustration reminds me of so many of the books from that time - I wonder if I read a Mary Blair illustrated book? Anyway, this was a familiar style to me from that time.

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Zoungy Kligge's avatar

Claudia, how cool would that be? I want to check my children’s books to see if I have any Mary Blair illustrations hidden away. It’s happened to me before with illustrations by other artists of that era like Retta Scott—who is covered in Queens of Animation which I also enjoyed reading!! Mary Blair is mentioned throughout that book if I recall. She created such beauty but had a troubled home life (I think she, her husband, and at least one child suffered from addiction issues). I may have to read Queens of Animation again.

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Claudia McGill's avatar

I just ordered the Queens of Animation book from the library. I thought I remembered Mary Blair but there were quite a few compelling stories in the book so I was not sure.

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Linda Kellc's avatar

This sounds like a great opportunity to work with you and concentrate on gouache painting Zoungy. I’m sorry to have to miss it as I have family visiting this weekend.

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Zoungy Kligge's avatar

Enjoy your family time Linda! And yes, a Mary Blair lesson is a great opportunity to focus on spontaneous uses of gouache, on playful design and bold color choices😊

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