"Ask any professional artist and they will tell you that as much as we need daring new artists, we also need creative conservators who preserve and protect the classic art of the past. When I first became an animator in the 1970s, I was given a tour of the Walt Disney ink & paint labs. I marveled at all the paint mixing machines and vats of powdered pigment to be mixed by experts into the subtlest hues required for a given scene. With the advent of computers all that has vanished. Even the companies that once supplied studios with acetate, paper and paints are no more. Yet people still enjoy the animated classics of yesteryear, and still collect the beautiful art used to bring those classics to life. Since their first viewing, many fans enjoy collecting real cel art from their favorite films.

 

Historian Jerry Beck said, "owning an animation cel is like owning one heartbeat of the movie." Originally the studios never intended their artwork to last much past the completion of the film. You could immediately spot decades old animation by the deterioration. Celluloid turned yellow and brittle with age, paint cracked and flaked off. This is where the animation art conservator’s skill becomes important. 

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Bethann McCoy-Gee put in years as a top Hollywood Animation Ink & Paint artist. Her screen credits include all the great classics of the 90s Disney Renaissance, such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Lilo & Stitch as well as tv shows like She-Ra Princess of Power and the Smurfs.

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She has assembled a team of veteran animation artists dedicated to the restoration of classic animation. Where they had originally used their skills to create cel art for new cartoon hits, they now ply those same skills in the restoration and preservation of classic cartoon art." 

 

Tom Sito is an animator, historian, and professor at the School of Cinematic Arts of the University of Southern California.