May 13, 2014 - Grand Cayman
Rachel had gotten up early that morning to run laps around the promenade deck and do her own yoga. I was waiting for her to come back, but she had been gone for over two hours, so I figured that she must have gone to Mom and Dad's. I called their room to see if they had her, and then asked them if they wanted to go to Disney Animation class with me. Rachel was still nowhere to be found, but we went on to the D Lounge for animation class.
Disney Animation - Persistence of Vision
There was a series of four animation classes offered throughout the week, and I had missed the first two (that's okay... I can draw Mickey Mouse on my own time). The class we attended was entitled Persistence of Vision and covered how Disney animation has evolved over the past 85 years. We learned how to draw Buzz Lightyear. The cast member (on the entertainment team... I forget his name, but his slogan was, "Whoop! Whoop!" which you were supposed to call out to him whenever you saw him on the ship) prefaced the lesson by making us swear that we would not judge our own drawings or anyone else's - his included. Buzz Lightyear is also a very challenging character to draw, especially since he is a three-dimensional character that we were drawing two-dimensionally.
Throughout the class, the instructor draws on a giant sketch pad with a black marker, and his sketch pad is projected onto a large screen, much like at Animation Academy at the Magic of Disney Animation at Disney's Hollywood Studios. However, unlike Animation Academy, the characters change between each class (unless it is a repeat of the class later that day) and progress in difficulty throughout the week.
My annoyance with the Disney animation classes is quite similar to my annoyance with my freehand drawing class (which I took last semester in architecture). It frustrates me to do step-by-step drawings. In freehand drawing, I wanted to draw the landscape/building in the order that I wanted. And in animation, I really just wanted them to flash up the final drawing of Buzz so that I could draw him. I think that also may be why I much prefer written tutorials as opposed to video tutorials... I can just scroll to the bottom of the page and see the final result, then go at my own pace. Now, that being said, there is great value to step-by-step instruction and breaking down drawings into little steps. I learned a lot of great technique, as well as method, in my freehand drawing class. As painful as it was for me to wait for the next step, drawing (what felt like) blindly, I'm really glad that I endured it (it was an elective I chose to take that I considered dropping) because now I have a new perspective on how to construct a drawing.... just like I now know how to set up the guides for Buzz.
I know I promised not to judge, but I don't think that my Buzz Lightyear looks much like Buzz. I mean, maybe there is a slight resemblance. But his mouth is far too large and crooked. I was also really wishing that I had a thick pen... like a Pentel sign pen... to draw with. But in all honestly, I'm not the best in drawing characters or anything that is supposed to look how it actually is, for that matter.
Buzz Lightyear-2 by
vshingl, on Flickr
As a perfectionist child (and a perfectionist adult), I do think that I would have gotten very frustrated at animation class. In fact, I would have cried (actually, I think I did cry as a child drawing Mickey Mouse). So if you have a child (or you yourself) would like to attend animation classes while on your
Disney Cruise, I have a few suggestions to produce higher-quality work and perhaps allow yourself to fix some drawing mistakes...
1.
Bring an eraser (or intentionally don't). They do not give pencils with erasers. The pencils are actually really crummy golf pencils that may or may not be sharp. The idea is to use a light-over-dark method which is what I do when I sketch (personally, I sketch with pen) because I think that all of the guide lines and mistakes only add character. Mess up? Fine - just draw the correct line and make it darker. A lot of people don't like to do that, though, so I would suggest bringing an eraser. However, if you think you or your child might spend more time erasing than drawing, maybe you should decide to leave the eraser behind.
2.
Bring your own pencil or pen. The pencils they give you are very small (golf pencils) and not very good for drawing. I was really wishing that I had my Pentel sign pen with me.
3. While you're at it, you could
bring your own paper or sketch book. The paper they give you is also really crummy copy paper. If you'd like something a little more substantial, I'd suggest bringing your own paper, sketch pad, or sketch book - especially if you plan to attend all four animation classes. Bringing your own sketch book could make a really fun souvenir.
4.
Bring colored pencils/crayons/markers/watercolors (probably not for children on the watercolor suggestion... that's a mess waiting to happen). While there is no time in the class to color, you or your child might want to take some time outside of the class to color your drawing.
After animation class, I returned to the room to find... still no Rachel! I decided to wake Max up, and a few minutes later, Rachel came in.
Rachel - "FINALLY! Where have you been?"
Me - "Me? Where have you been?"
Rachel - "Coming in and out of the room trying to find you, but you're never here! You or Mom and Dad!"
That's when it would have been nice if we had made a practice of using our Wave phones provided to us (2 per stateroom). The reason we didn't use the Wave phones was that until then, we didn't really have any trouble keeping up with one another, and the Wave phone was just one more thing to carry around. Not only that, but they are old school phones that we were having difficulty using (remember the old number keypad texting?) and didn't really want to spend the time to learn. Also, the speaker was blown on one of my parents' Wave phones, so it sounded like Donald Duck was talking.