2008 Woodie Awards
Disney lives at Arts Alive!
Brett Shiells
Issue date: 3/19/08 Section: Community
Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble are hanging out with Papa Smurf at Eureka Books, and they're sticking around until April. As part of Old Town Eureka's Arts Alive! celebration, a collection of hand-painted animation cels from Disney films and Warner Brothers cartoons are on display in the bookstore, available for purchase.
Cels, short for celluloids, are paintings of each frame of an animated character's movement on clear, plastic sheets.
The group of original cels and character designs are from the late Fred Hellmich. His resume included 23 years of animating for Disney and contains hand-painted cels of sweet-faced animals from a murderous dream-sequence in the Lilly Tomlin movie, Nine to Five.
Animation cels from Disney films are highly sought after, collectible expert Cecil Munsey said. A chapter about cels in his book, Disneyana, explains that their value is based on subject matter.
"Walt Disney kept most of the cels," Munsey said. "They became very valuable."
Scott Brown, owner of Eureka Books, said the cels are mundane objects from the past that were never meant to be sold. He explained that cels were often thrown away or erased and reused because the clear acetate they were painted on was expensive, making such a large collection from the same artist very rare.
"They're the highest level of animation," Brown said. "We came across them purely by happenstance."
Brown said he first heard about the cels from Hellmich's daughter when she tried to sell some books at his shop, and quickly became interested in acquiring them. Through this chance encounter, Brown said, he met the animator's widow, Celia Hellmich, who lives in McKinleyville at Timber Ridge.
"We kept the cels because there was no thing about saving them, and we had to have model sheets to draw the characters," Hellmich said. "They became very popular years ago and we sold a lot of them, but now there's resurgence in demand."
Celia Hellmich worked in the lower level of animators for shows like Mr. Magoo, she said, copying character drawings done in pencil onto acetate and painting them. Her husband produced the original drawings that were sent to her colleagues.
Cels, short for celluloids, are paintings of each frame of an animated character's movement on clear, plastic sheets.
The group of original cels and character designs are from the late Fred Hellmich. His resume included 23 years of animating for Disney and contains hand-painted cels of sweet-faced animals from a murderous dream-sequence in the Lilly Tomlin movie, Nine to Five.
Animation cels from Disney films are highly sought after, collectible expert Cecil Munsey said. A chapter about cels in his book, Disneyana, explains that their value is based on subject matter.
"Walt Disney kept most of the cels," Munsey said. "They became very valuable."
Scott Brown, owner of Eureka Books, said the cels are mundane objects from the past that were never meant to be sold. He explained that cels were often thrown away or erased and reused because the clear acetate they were painted on was expensive, making such a large collection from the same artist very rare.
"They're the highest level of animation," Brown said. "We came across them purely by happenstance."
Brown said he first heard about the cels from Hellmich's daughter when she tried to sell some books at his shop, and quickly became interested in acquiring them. Through this chance encounter, Brown said, he met the animator's widow, Celia Hellmich, who lives in McKinleyville at Timber Ridge.
"We kept the cels because there was no thing about saving them, and we had to have model sheets to draw the characters," Hellmich said. "They became very popular years ago and we sold a lot of them, but now there's resurgence in demand."
Celia Hellmich worked in the lower level of animators for shows like Mr. Magoo, she said, copying character drawings done in pencil onto acetate and painting them. Her husband produced the original drawings that were sent to her colleagues.
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arleen bailey
posted 10/10/08 @ 11:21 PM PST
To whom it may concern,
I have been gathering information on walt disney animated cells,I do believe I may have in my home an Origianl disney cell of Pinoccho, he is underwater, the background has seaweed, and two fish, I am trying to find more information of collectors on Pinocchio cells, would you be able to help me. (Continued…)
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