by Beth Keating
Review/Park Visit
DisneyBizJournal.com
January 17, 2024
EPCOT’s International Festival of the Arts is perhaps our family’s favorite festival, and we always consider it way too short to cram in all the fun. A mere five weeks long, there’s hardly enough time to make sure you participate in all the cool interactive offerings, from helping to create a larger than life paint-by-numbers mural that changes throughout the festival, to meeting and greeting with your favorite Disney artists, purchasing some new artwork for your home, designing chalk drawings, and chowing down on the creative entries at the Food Studios.
We also make sure to see at least a few of the shows during the “Disney on Broadway Concert Series,” enjoying a rotating cast of Broadway stars bringing the best of Disney’s Broadway music to Florida. We’ve seen some superb performances in the America Gardens Theatre, and with the actual cast members from the Broadway shows performing the songs they’ve been known for, you’re guaranteed a Broadway-caliber performance each evening as part of your EPCOT visit.
There is, however, a lesser-known performance taking place each day in the America Gardens Theatre. At 12:30 and 1:30 each day, a working Disney animation artist gives a free class on drawing one of guests’ favorite Disney characters. “Animation Academy” is a fifty minute (give or take, since it’s live) class that takes you step-by-step through the process of drawing your very own Disney friend to take home.
At the entrance to the theatre, you are handed a clipboard with sketch paper and a pencil, and you’ll settle in for your instructions. The stage and cameras are set up so that the overhead screen gives you an up-close, detailed view of exactly what moves your instructor is making on the page, while they are talking you through the drawing.
I am art challenged, so even my stick-figures look…pathetic. So, why bother carving out an hour of your EPCOT day to participate in a drawing workshop, especially if you aren’t a budding animator? Easy, because while you are enjoying the fun/torment of trying to bring a Disney character to life on your sketch paper, you are also learning a lot about why the Disney animation artists make certain decisions about the characters they are working on, and you also get to hear fun stories about the behind-the-scenes things that take place during the creative process.
On the day I attended, our instructor had us work on Figment, a fitting selection since he is the mascot of the festival, but your character of the day may differ. Our instructor had, among other things, worked on The Lion King, and more recently, was involved in creating the 50th anniversary statues throughout the parks, so to say he was familiar with the nuances of a lot of characters would be an understatement!
The pace of the class was just slow enough for those of us who weren’t trained artists to keep up, without boring the future animators in the audience. A few minutes at the end of the session provided time for questions from the audience as well.
Your artwork may not qualify for a future academy award, but at the least, you’ll come home with a really cool (and free!) souvenir, and some interesting stories about your favorite Disney friends.
The EPCOT International Festival of the Arts runs through February 19, 2024.
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Beth Keating is a theme parks, restaurant and entertainment reporter for DisneyBizJournal.
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