Pencil Artist of the Week: Liam Chestnutt

This week’s featured pencil artist is Liam Chestnutt, a pencil artist living in Southampton, England. Liam is one of our followers on Twitter whose pencil art caught our eye after he reached out to us with a pencil question. So, for all of you Twitterers out there, shoot us a tweet if you have any questions or if you just want to say hi. Who knows, you might get your art featured on Studio 602!

Liam recreates scenes and characters from his favorite Disney films with graphite, stripping away their colored, glossy forms and breaking them down to the most basic level. His drawings remind us that every animated film, no matter how finished it may seem, starts with a piece of paper, a pencil and an idea.

One of my favorite drawings Liam has shared is a drawing of Carl from the movie Up. It’s easy to forget that computer animated films start as paper drawings, sketches and storyboards, and it’s refreshing to see one of these films translated into graphite form.