Takeaways from the Tim Burton LACMA Exhibit

I went to the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA a few weekends ago and it was fantastic. I strongly encourage anyone who lives in the LA area to check it out. As usual, I was thinking about what I could learn from the experience and I came away with several key lessons.Many of the key ideas that I've been interested in lately were reaffirmed: constantly producing work, strong foundational training, sketches, collaboration, and a variety of mediums.One of the most impressive things you notice when first walking in is the incredible volume of work that Tim Burton has produced over his lifetime. And I think it's safe to assume that what's inside the building is only a tiny fraction of his actual input. There were thousands of works, ranging from drawings and paintings to costumes and live action films. There are many reasons to be prolific, but one of the most important is that the more you create, the better you get at it. It's back to the old 10,000 hours thing. Another reason to be constantly outputting work from a purely commercial standpoint is that the more you produce, the more you can sell!It was interesting to see that he has been consistently prolific throughout his life. There are many sketchbooks ranging from high school all the way to the present, and even when he had a busy career as a Hollywood director he was painting for it's own sake.Another lesson is that a strong foundation in basic skills is essential. Burton's early artwork is very good but it's not unusual. He has drawings of dogs, normal looking people, a somewhat typical looking cartoon safari man, etc. These early drawings are evidence that Burton can draw, period. It's not that he draws weird characters with distorted limbs because he doesn't know how to do anything else, it's because that's where his focus is. Many brilliant artists have this in common. Stravinsky's early music sounds like his teacher's, Rimsky-Korsakov. It wasn't until he had mastered that sound that he was able to move on and develop a unique voice.A few other takeaways:

• Sketches, thousands of them. Not every idea has to be fully fleshed out. Reminds me of Peter Sims' great book Little Bets because sketches require much less effort than a fully developed piece.
• Collaboration, both working with the same people consistently and as a tool to leverage multiple talents/skills/labor for a mass producing ability.
• Many different mediums. Drawings, stop-motion animation, animated films, live action shorts and features, costumes, models, statues, paintings, etc.