Welcome!

Welcome to the Inspiration Grab-Bag, a new blog endeavor that I have decided to undergo as I depart on a personal quest to stay inspired and re-vitalize my work. I will do my best to share my experiences with you by way of posting screen grabs & scans from a variety of pre-1960's animated cartoons, comics & illustration, since this is the well from which I draw the majority of my inpiration. I will also attempt to post some form of insight and/or commentary to accompany the posted images each week. And while I don't want this to become a second portfolio or anything, I will occasionally post examples of my own work that has been inspired by certain aspects of the imagery I have posted. The blog will be updated weekly with a fresh batch of images every Wednesday beginning next week, and I encourage everyone to leave comments regarding the images posted in the hope of spurring further conversation and debate on the material.

As of today, my plans for the first post will be a selection of screen-grabs from the 1954 Walt Disney short "Pigs is Pigs" a wonderully fun adventure in limited animation with the sort of beautifully handled graphic design sensibilites and art direction that is a joy to watch. This short was recently released on DVD as part of the fantastic Disney Treasures collection on the "Disney Rarities" set. If you don't already own this DVD set, you should definitely run out and grab it.

Thanks,

-Clarke