Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

A new and beautiful site has just been launced by Tania Covo in the UK. It’s dedicated to the illustration art of Errol Le Cain.

It includes a complete listing of Errol’s books with sample illustrations. It also has a page of animation illustrations, including a couple for Dick Williams‘ Cobbler and the Thief.

This is something that’s been long overdue, and I have to congratulate Ms. Covo for having done such a beautiful job of it. I’ve added the link to my splog.

In the past, I’ve posted several pages each dedicated to a different one of Mr. LeCain’s books, and I hope to put up another soon. These are links to past such posts:

Thorn Rose
Pied Piper of Hamelin
12 Dancing Princesses
Have You Seen My Sister
Hiawatha’s Childhood

Tuesday, FPS put up a connection to the animated shorts that would be screened at Sundance. Likewise, the Slamdance Film Festival has announced their schedule of animated shorts for this year’s festival. There seems to be a preponderance of puppet films. The festival usually has a more experimental bent in their choices, and it looks to be the same this year.
Many of these films will grace the next year’s animation festivals, so it’s nice to get a head’s up on the list.

To read more about these films go to: Animated Shorts. The list of titles and directors includes:

Africa Parting Directed by Robyn Yannoukos and Brian LoSchiavo (7 minutes)
The Ballad of Mary Slade Directed by Robin Fuller (3 minutes)
Close Your Eyes and Do Not Breathe Directed by Vuk Jevremovic (7 minutes)
Cranium Theater Directed by Jason Sandri (7 minutes)
Eva Directed by Martin Quaden (9 minutes)
Infinite Justice Directed by Karl Tebbe (2 minutes)
Kuro Kumo Directed by Norton (5 minutes)
Latent Sorrow Directed by Shon Kim (4 minutes)
Loom Directed by Scott Kravitz (5 minutes)
Matière / Material Directed by Boran Richard (6 minutes)
Oneheadword Protection Directed by Igor et Ivan Buharov (6 minutes)
Printed Rainbow Directed by Gitanjali Rao (15 minutes)
Tinnitus Directed by Mark Zero Lastimosa (7 minutes)
Ujbaz Izbeneki Has Lost His Soul Directed by Neil Jack (5 minutes)

You can see a short clip of Kuro Kumo (pictured above) by Jesse Norton on his site, Humoring the Fates.

The Animation Guild Blog has begun their Remembrance of those from the animation community who died last year. It’s become an important part of our year – to look back on the lives of those we’ve been connected to.

– Have You Seen My Sister? is another children’s book illustrated by Errol Le Cain and which I am sampling here today.

The book was written by Mathew Price and is the second collaboration the pair did together. (The Christmas Stockings was published in 1987.) This is the last of Le Cain’s published work; it was published in 1990 posthumously.

It’s not my favorite of his books. The watercolor illustrations are a bit too sweet for my taste and seem to rely on what he learned from the commercial world of animation. However, the genius is in the details. Each page is packed with things to look at and identify. There’s another whole story in the illustrations.
(Click on any image to enlarge.)

This is the cover as well as three interior pages. The entire book is done as double page spreads. Each page has a die-cut hole in it so you see through to the next (or past) page. For example, in the second page below, the stork is on the previous page and can be seen through the hole.

To review who Errol was and other books of his I’ve featured go:
here IV or
here III or
here II or
here I.

- Here are some of the illustrations from Errol Le Cain‘s book 12 Dancing Princesses. The book is a small beauty which I’ve treasured since its publication in 1978.

The illustrations are beautiful watercolors very much in Le Cain’s style – full of style and character, rich in detail among the many characters depicted.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

- Hiawatha’s Childhood is the book which won the most number of awards for Errol Le Cain. In 1984 winning the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal.

Here are three page spreads from that book which illustrates the Longfellow poem, “The Song of Hiawatha.”

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

- Continuing with more of Errol Le Cain‘s book illustrations, here are five images from The Pied Piper of Hamelin first published in 1989 (the year he died). The book is an adaptation of Browning’s poem by Sara and Stephen Corrin.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

One of the most influential artists on Richard Williams‘ The Cobbler and The Thief was Errol Le Cain.

Errol came to the Williams studio in Soho, London early on. Dick took him under his wing and pushed him to complete, almost singlehandedly, the animated short The Sailor and The Devil (1967). The film is a very stylized piece animated in a very liquid and fluid fashion all on ones. The bacgrounds are predominantly black with large expanses of sea always in motion.

Having this artist do much of the film, himself, was how Dick felt would be the best way to teach him animation. In fact it is a good way, but one doesn’t expect such films to be this exceptional. A good portion of the film is featured in a BBC documentary done about the Williams Studio in 1967.

Errol went on to set the style of Nasurudin, one of the original titles of Dick’s dream feature. Over the years he became most prominently involved in doing the backgrounds for the feature.

While working for Richard Williams, Errol Le Cain illustrated children’s books. His illustration style is a meticulous one, often using a soaked parchment which he took weeks to prepare. The books took on a fame for the illustrator, and he received his greatest acclaim, deservedly so, for this art.

I have in my collection a number of these books, and starting with Thorn Rose, I’d like to post a couple of the book illustrations.

(Click any image to enlarge.)