Walt Disney Crossing Buena Vista Street Barefoot.

As a CalArts student in the early '80's, I had the opportunity to meet many people who worked for Walt Disney himself.  Today being the anniversary of Walt's death in 1966, I thought I would share a story that Elmer Plummer, my life drawing instructor, told me, recalling the last time he saw Walt.... 

We all knew Walt was in the hospital, but we didn't know how bad it was. Well, I was coming down the hallway and saw him standing there - barefoot.

He said, ‘How are you, Elmer?’

‘Oh, I’m all right.’ I said. “Where are your shoes?”

FLIP Artiste du Mois: Elmer Plummer

After posting about Elmer Plummer's life drawing class last week, I wanted to do a piece on his watercolors, and while I'm at it, bring back a feature from the old format FLIP - the monthly featured artist.  So many of our industry friends and colleagues have created personal art - that is to say, artwork not generated for an animation studio, which, unless the artist has a website or has you over for dinner, is work you probably will never see. 

 Enter FLIP!

In the case of the late great Elmer Plummer (1910-86), his work is available to the public, but you have to search around a bit. Some of his watercolor paintings are in the National Gallery in Washington, DC.  Elmer worked at Disney Studios during the Walt years as a designer and story man.  He was drinking buddies with Lee and Mary Blair. But like a lot of the Disney talent of that time, he was a fine artist first and foremost.

Elmer Man

Elmer Plummer was a brilliant artist.  His watercolors are in the National Gallery in Washington, DC. He designed the roustabouts sequence in Dumbo and the mushroom dance sequence in Fantasia among other films during his 30 plus years at Disney Studios. But to certain artists in the industry today, Elmer Plummer was known as their life drawing instructor.  

Elmer Plummer caricatured as one of his Elmer Men.  He was not amused.      
Photo courtesy of  Gary Conrad

Elmer taught life drawing to the Character Animation Department at CalArts from 1977 to 1983. He developed a system of learning the proportions of the human anatomy known by students as "The Elmer Man".  At the start of every class, he would stand before a chalkboard and create a boxy figure while lecturing on relative proportions of the body.  We  drew along.  Then he would introduce a live model to draw, applying this box-man system.  There was nothing sexy about this system.  Advanced students found it dull and repetitive.  For novices like me, it was educational and repetitive.  

Effects animator Al Holter kept his notes from Elmer's class, and shared them with FLIP (and you!):