Info on these Background and Layout Artists

[Jack G.]

I'd like to find out more about these two artists:

Ernie Nordli: He did layouts for Broom-Stick Bunny and Gee Whiz-z-z.
I'm amazed by his stuff. Did he do anything more for Warners or any other studio?
Broomstick Bunny's backgrounds look like UPA-style on acid or something.

Erich Scenk: He was head of the background department at Fleischer in the 30's.
He was known for his sagging buildings, rounded furniture, bent lamposts and the "mouldy prune" technique - a building up of paint layers.
Did he work elsewhere? That style is one of my favorite things about the Fleischer studio 30's-era Popeyes.

Any info would be appreciated.

[Jaime_Weinman]

Nordli was mostly a Disney man; he did layouts on many of the features and shorts. After his year or two with WB, he went back to Disney. There's a 1961 Disney cartoon, "The Saga of Windwagon Smith," which was designed by Nordli and which looks very much like the work he did for Jones, not only in backgrounds but in the character designs.

I love Nordli's stuff for WB too; in some ways I like his work better than the stuff Maurice Noble did after he came back to the studio. Nordli's designs are very stylized, but they always allow the characters to "read" well in front of them, and they seem add to the comedy instead of coming off as arty (which is how a lot of the post-1955 stylized designs tended to look).

[bjimba]

Here's the IMDB page on Ernie Nordli:

http://imdb.com/name/nm0635128/

According to this, Ernie was Art Director for "Dumbo", as well as for one segment of "Fantasia". He worked as layout artist for Disney for some Donald Duck shorts, worked on "Jonny Quest", did one Chuck Jones "Tom & Jerry", and was Production Designer for "The Alvin Show".

Unfortunately, IMDB is less helpful with Erich Schenk. The only thing they have on his page is a credit for "Gulliver's Travels".

[Sogturtle]

I'd like to find out more about these two artists:
....
Erich Scenk: He was head of the background department at Fleischer in the 30's.
He was known for his sagging buildings, rounded furniture, bent lamposts and the "mouldy prune" technique - a building up of paint layers.
Did he work elsewhere? That style is one of my favorite things about the Fleischer studio 30's-era Popeyes.

Any info would be appreciated.

Masked Stinker~

I have a very hard time with Erich Schenk's career (which Bjimba basically noted above), it is ever so sketchy really... He evidently joined the Fleischer's somewhat later than one might think (he is NOT in the all-inclusive 1930-'31 roster of employee's photos... Leslie Cabarga noted in passing that a surviving background from the 1934 Betty Boop "Red Hot Mama" bears Schenk's name on the back... Complicating matters is that although the studio clearly spelled his name as Erich SChenk in the "Gulliver's..." credits, Cabarga on commenting on "Red Hot Mama" spells his name as "Shenck":eek:... Okay, so that means he joined Fleischer somewhere between 1931 and '34... And although "Schenk" is almost certainly the RIGHT spelling, the other is possible".:)

As bizarre as it sounds it would appear that Erich left the Fleischer's studio for a while and was in 1937/38 in Colorado... Before anybody objects as to why an animation background artist would take off for 1937 Colorado, keep this in mind... Colorado was the home of The Alexander Film Co. which made "commissioned films" including animation among their services, Schenk's services would have been valued there... But WHY would Schenk be there?? Maybe just maybe the most logical of all... fleeing the bitter Fleischer strike of 1937...:eek:

With the strike's resolution there he was down in Florida with them making "Gulliver's Travels", but OH!! That's where we started this tale!:tweety:

[Jack G.]

I love Nordli's stuff for WB too; in some ways I like his work better than the stuff Maurice Noble did after he came back to the studio.
Yeah, I feel the same way. Though Nobel is excellent.

... Leslie Cabarga noted in passing that a surviving background from the 1934 Betty Boop "Red Hot Mama" bears Schenk's name on the back...

Yeah, the Cabarga book is my where all my info on Schenk comes from.

Thanks for the info all!:)

[Jack]

I love Nordli's stuff for WB too; in some ways I like his work better than the stuff Maurice Noble did after he came back to the studio. Nordli's designs are very stylized, but they always allow the characters to "read" well in front of them, and they seem add to the comedy instead of coming off as arty (which is how a lot of the post-1955 stylized designs tended to look).I also like Nordli's backgrounds - I really like his work for "Rocket-Bye Baby" and "Gee Whizzz." Very 1950's, but not in a bad dated way.

As for Noble, I like his first stint better than his second - the backgrounds just seem more complimentary and "lush" in his early work for Jones.

[Ray Pointer]

I'd like to find out more about these two artists:

Erich Scenk: He was head of the background department at Fleischer in the 30's. He was known for his sagging buildings, rounded furniture, bent lamposts and the "mouldy prune" technique - a building up of paint layers.
Did he work elsewhere? That style is one of my favorite things about the Fleischer studio 30's-era Popeyes.

Any info would be appreciated.

The sagging buildings, rounded furniture, and bent lamposts were the results of the layouts executed by the Directing animators. The backgorund painters only gave form to those drawings. And while the original question was about layout artists, this is really about background artists and techniques.

The "moldy prune" technique as coined by Chuck Jones referred to the watercolor wash painting style that was used in cartoons until opaque (gauche) painting became more popular. I've always felt that Jone's label and attitude was misguided since there is a great skill in working in this techinque which requires planing and great control of the amount of water and paint appliet to the illustration board. To some degree there were a few thin layers "built" over the underpainting such as white to make highlights, but for the most part, this technique does not rely on the building up of paint layers in the same manner as oil painting or opaque BG painting using tempera or acrylics.

The impression of most Fleischer cartoons such as those that Schenk worked on is based on a transparent sepia ink wash technique used in their black and white cartoons. Some cartoons used the gauche technique to a lesser degree of success, and in some cartoons, both styles can be seen. The look of the gauche style is not as attractive since it is made up of the applications of flat areas of grays or colors without the subtlties of the gradations possible with watercolor. In application, this is a type of "build-up" painting technique that would be more properly termed "moldy prune" since it more directly resembles a "Paint-by-Numbers" look and is far more rough looking, and less attactive than the watercolor wash technique.

[Jack G.]

Thanks! I thought you might know something since you did research for the Fleischer Story.

The directing animators did the layouts? That wasn't the impression I got from the book. It sounded like Schenk was the one who did this. Carbarga wrote that Schenk built furniture that was in a style similar to his backgrounds.

I didn't know Chuck Jones coined the term "moldy prune". I have been reading about his attitude toward the Warner's backgrounds before he took on layout/background artists for his unit (see link in other thread about background/layout artists).