Killer new art book: Mary Blair

Not tiki, but I just got my copy of the recently released "The Art And Flair Of Mary Blair", and it's fantastic. I've always wanted a collection of her works.

If you're not sure who Mary Blair is, she's a childen's illustrator who did a lot of concept art for Walt Disney. She was Walt's favorite artist. She did a lot of murals and concept work for Disneyland. This is the first and only compliation of her work from both Disney and non-Disney illustrations (AFAIK)

Here's an Amazon Link:

The Art and Flair of Mary Blair

~Hanford

I dig Mary Blair. I have a couple of her original greeting cards. I look forward to seeing the book

The book got some negative reviews on Amazon because of the quality (or lack thereof) of the reproduction of the art.

Do you feel the same way, or does it look good to you?

I am not familiar with enough of her originals to compare, but overall the pictures seem a little dark. I didn't notice it until I read other reviews of it.
Not dark enough to take away from her work, though. One reviewer said the book was ruined by the reproduction colors, but I think that's too strong a description. I still recommend the book.

I heard the book was a little thin too - but I haven't seen it myself yet.... Certainly there is a lot of her artwork out there - I wonder why Disney held back? Canemaker's books are usually so thick!

I came across this site on BoingBoing about an illustrated book of Hindu Dieties by an artist named Sanjay Patel who works as animator for Pixar and who's style has been compared to Mary Blair that I thought you might find interesting. Here is a link to some of Sanjay's Doodles. Neat lookin stuff.

Chongolio

The Mary Blair "Meadow Gold Ice Cream" TV commercial can be now found here:

http://web.mac.com/fcline/iWeb/FredCline.com/Blog/08366061-2FF2-458C-B6F9-9180F9D09654.html