Since 2014, Disney Press has been celebrating the talented artists at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios with a series of picture books that allow modern artists to have a well deserved moment in the spotlight. The third entry in the Pixar Animation Studios Artist Showcase is Box Meets Circle by Animator Aaron Hartline. It’s a cute little story about two incompatible friends trying to find a compromise.
Circle is round and bouncy, all he wants to do is jump and bounce around. Box is squared off on all corners, he prefers to do activities where he can sit and be still. How can two unlikely friends find a way to have fun together? The answers can be found in Box Meets Circle.
Aaron Hartline ends his book with a short description of how his childhood love of drawing and movies led to a career in animation and his dream job at Pixar. He never lost his love of doodles and the characters of Box and Circle were ones he shared with his kids before the opportunity to make them part of the Pixar Animation Studios Artist Showcase series came along. He includes pictures in this section, making it a great way for parents to help inspire their kids to reach for their dreams as well.
Hartline uses really fun textures with the paint in this book. Each character looks like they were painted with a sponge and it sometimes goes a little outside the lines, recalling the style of the backgrounds in Disney’s 101 Dalmatians. With the white backgrounds and yellow/blue color scheme, it called back to the Mr. Men & Little Miss book series that I used to read as a kid.
With Box Meets Circle from the Pixar Animation Studios Artist Showcase, kids and adults can get to know Animator Aaron Hartline, who has worked on Up, Toy Story 3, and Inside Out. A fourth entry in the series, Henri’s Hats by Mike Wu, is scheduled to be released this Fall and Mike Wu is already an accomplished author with his Ellie series, also from Disney Hyperion.
Click here to see more entries in the Pixar Animation Studios Artist Showcase.
Click here to see the sister series, the Walt Disney Animation Studios Artist Showcase.