Hi all! Before we get into the meat of this post, I have a quick announcement to make! I have a brand new item up on my Etsy shop, and its ACNH Character Commissions! These are digital full body commissions for just $10! If you wanna learn more about these commissions, just click here:
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Today I have a blog post I've been promising for awhile, but haven't gotten around to writing out yet. Here is my review for the 2020 EPCOT Festival of the Arts!
If you're not familiar with the festival, every January, Walt Disney World's EPCOT gets tons of art themed booths and activities! I had so much fun at this festival, and wanted to be able to show off all my pictures from the trip! If you follow my Instagram, you will have seen all these photos already as I was sharing them real time in my stories, including tons more pics from the other parks as well. But this blog post will be focusing on my experience at the festival of the Arts in EPCOT.
Before I start talking about the festival, I do wanna share these Mickey Ears I made themed to art to where at EPCOT! I used bright colors to make it feel fun and painted on a pencil pattern on one ear, paint swatches on the other, and drips on the bow! I also attached a paintbrush to the middle! I'm really proud of these and a cast member even thought I had bought them from a festival stall so that Definitely made my day.
Wanna see more of my DIY Mickey Ears?
Head over to my Instagram - I have a post which includes all of them!
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So, let's start with day 1!
As you can see, this year's Festival began on January 17th, and I was actually there on the 18th, so it was really cool seeing it as it basically begun.
First we walked around to some stalls set up for the festival! These were filled with pieces from all sorts of amazing artists, so it was hard to choose what to take pics of! I decided to only take pictures of my very favorites. I'm not sure which shop pictures are from which day, so i'm gonna put them all in now!
These ones are made up out of tiny lines that create other shapes, like a hidden Ursula in the Little Mermaid Piece! Very neat!
The first real activity we headed to was the Animation Academy! If you're a Disney parks fan like me, you may remember the old Animation Academy in Hollywood Studios. As I mentioned in my blog Introduction post actually, it was my absolute favorite attraction in Disney World until it sadly left in 2017. This EPCOT Animation Academy is only back for the Festival of the Arts, BUT there is actually a permanent new Academy over in Animal Kingdom! Unfortunately, the AK version is not nearly as advanced as the HS used to be, but thankfully the one for the festival was right on par with the old HS academy!!
Each day had both beginner and advanced classes, we decided to do both!!
For the beginner we got to draw Pluto. I was able to catch a picture of the animators example as well as my recreation of it! If you don't know how these classes work, an animator basically shows you a step by step on how to draw a specific Disney character. I think mine turned out really well! I unfortunately can't remember the artists full name, but he was an amazing teacher and went really in depth! Here is his version, and mine for comparison!
The second time around we got Stitch - my favorite Disney character!! I have to admit, I've drawn Stitch A LOT before. Here's my drawing:
I even got a picture with the animator, who was nice enough to sign my art of Pluto!
After the class, we headed over to another fun activity that would actually span out through all the days. This was a scavenger hunt through the world showcase of EPCOT! In each country was a different painting you had to find, and also figure out which painting belonged to each country. On the back were stickers we could fill in once we found the painting. It was a lot of fun and took us all 3 days to complete!
Got a quick picture of the spirit jersey for the festival! They actually had two themes for the festival that changed about halfway through the month, first this Figment Pigment theme, and later a sort of sketchy watercolor theme!
Not totally related to the festival, but here's a quick drawing I made in EPCOT that day!
That night we headed over to a show of Disney on Broadway! Two amazing performers sang various Disney Broadway songs on specific nights of the festival. I was amazed when they came out singing Newsies, my all time favorite musical! It was an amazing show!
Finally as we walked out I was able to get a picture of one of the amazing chalk paintings on the ground in future world!
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Day 2
These pictures are from January 21st. We got into EPCOT super early this day, and I got to spot a ton of cute little decorations I hadn't noticed when it was more crowded the day before!
These were all props set up in France in the world showcase.
We participated in the mural painting this day! Every day of the festival, a new mural is set up, and everyone can fill in 3 squares. At the end of the day, the mural is meant to be complete! Unfortunately I could not get a picture of the finished mural, but here's where I painted:
I'm not exactly sure which squares were mine, but it was some 3 in this image! I think part of mine was the two up top sort of smudged to the right.. because even when just painting in tiny squares, I can not use
acrylics without getting them absolutely
everywhere.
And here's a cute postcard which shows what the mural WOULD look like Finished!
Here's a quick drawing I made of Rapunzel as though she was at the festival!
We mostly walked around looking for our scavenger hunt paintings, which at the time I didn't want to take pictures of to put on my Instagram as it would spoil the game. But as we walked around the world, we did grab a bunch of snacks!
I don't remember what each of these were called, but the very first picture is a Mexican dish that is among the best things I've eaten in my life.
Here they are:
This slushy is one I do remember! You may know I love slushies and frozen drinks, especially ones that are very sour, as I've actually mentioned it in my insta stories a few times. This one was in EPCOT especially for the festival at a stand called Fife and Drum, and the drink was called the musical float.
This thing was blue raspberry, lemon, and strawberry flavored slushy with MORE ICE CREAM ON THE TOP. It was heavnly.
We finished the day by creating our own spin paintings! This was a super cool process. You got to pick a few different colors, then the canvas would be spun as you dropped in the paint, Creating a totally random pattern! It was so much fun, here's how our paintings turned out:
<-------- This one is mine!!
On to the last day!
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Day 3
These last pictures were taken on the 25th. We only stayed in EPCOT for about half the day, but it was probably the most fun of all! We got to participate in an extremely cool Cel Painting class! Cels are the name for the old sheets animators used to use to draw their Characters! It was a very interesting process, where you actually had to paint on the backside of the sheet. The lines were printed on the front, so that we could then paint the backside of the cel like animators used to!
Here are some pictures from that:
The finished result:
I was also able to meet the amazing animator Lynn Rippberger, who actually worked on Mulan, The Little Mermaid, and Lilo and Stitch!! It was amazing getting to meet her, she was insanely kind and inspiring to be around!
I honestly can't believe I met a past
animator on Lilo and Stitch. It's been
my favorite Disney movie for a very
long time, and it inspired me a lot
to try and draw Stitch when I was
younger. This was a special moment!
I also got her to sign the back of my ears!
Speaking of ear signing, Lynn isn't the only artist I got to meet that day! Here are my pics with Gabby Zappata, an artist I've loved and followed for a long time!
As soon as I heard Gabby would be there while I was, I knew I had to make time to find her booth and meet her. I was so excited to finally meet this amazing artist and own a piece of her art!
I had Gabby sign my ears as well, and I
also purchased a postcard with a piece
of her art on the front!! This art was of
the film Up which is another favorite of mine
so I was so excited to see that piece of her art at the booth!
Here are pictures of the postcard and her
signature on the back of my ears:
Here's the final piece of my own art which I finished that day:
Moving along, here's the last Animation Academy we went to. This time we got to draw Marie from the Aristocats! I'm not sure I was able to really capture her, but she was a more advanced one.
AND we were able to find every painting throughout the world showcase, so here was our prize for finishing the scavenger hunt! It's a mini puzzle of Figment!
This isn't art related per say, but it's one of the best things I've ever had. This slushy was from the cool wash, a pop up slushy stand for the festival. You could pick from a variety of slushy mixes and toppings so I was very excited. This slushy was lemonade and blue raspberry flavored, topped with sour strips, hard candies, and cotton candy. It was insanely good. So good it's worthy of a
big picture instead of these smaller ones:
And after that, we left the festival. It was an absolutely amazing experience that I would totally recommend. It's very worth it and I had so much fun with all the different activities and classes. There's still things we didn't get around to doing!
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