Product Description
This It Takes Two Carl and Ellie from UP giclee on canvas by Tom Matousek captures the best in relationship goals, PIXAR-style.
It Takes Two by Tom Matousek comes rolled and signed by the artist.
About the development of the It Takes Two couple Carl and Ellie Fredricksen in UP:
Docter noted the film reflects his friendships with Disney veterans Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Joe Grant (who all died before the film's release and thus the film was dedicated to them). Grant gave the script his approval as well as some advice before his death in 2005. Docter recalled Grant would remind him the audience needed an "emotional bedrock" because of how wacky the adventure would become; here it is Carl mourning for his wife. Docter felt Grant's personality influenced Carl's deceased wife Ellie more than the grouchy main character, and Carl was primarily based on Spencer Tracy, Walter Matthau, James Whitmore, and their own grandparents, because there was "something sweet about these grumpy old guys". Docter and Jonas Rivera noted Carl's charming nature in spite of his grumpiness derives from the elderly "hav[ing] this charm and almost this 'old man license' to say things that other people couldn't get away with ... It's like how we would go to eat with Joe Grant and he would call the waitresses 'honey'. I wish I could call a waitress 'honey'."
Docter revealed the filmmakers' first story outline had Carl "just want[ing] to join his wife up in the sky. It was almost a kind of strange suicide mission or something. And obviously that's [a problem]. Once he gets airborne, then what? So we had to have some goal for him to achieve that he had not yet gotten." As a result, they added the plot of going to South America. The location was chosen due to both Docter's love of tropical locations, but also in wanting a location Carl could be stuck with a kid due to the inability to leave him with an authority such as a police officer or social worker. They implemented a child character as a way to help Carl stop being "stuck in his ways".
About Tom Matousek:
Tom Matousek says “It is my desire to create abstract work that is understandable to all who view it, while at the same time provoking thought, curiosity, imagination, inspiration, and conversation.” Tom Matousek is a San Francisco based, award winning artist, who began his artistic journey by studying cartoons as a child and in a short time, could draw almost anything from memory. “I have lots of memories of staying up late with my brother and friends, watching Creature Features and drawing anything we could get our hands on—the sports page, baseball and football cards, beverage cans and cartoon characters. I would stay in my room for hours creating my own cartoons. From the time I was a kid it was my dream to be a Disney artist.” His meteoric rise as a prominent mural painter soon landed his artwork in the homes of professional athletes, high-end restaurants, and at AT&T Park, home of three time World Series Champions, the San Francisco Giants. These commissions soon drew the eye of San Francisco’s world renowned theater district, where Tom began a career in Set Design that ultimately led him, in 2010, to win a Shellie Award, the East Bay’s version of the Tony’s. All the while, Tom Matousek continued to experiment with portraits on canvas, using abstract shapes in order to define his artistic voice even further. It was during this explorative period that Tom began to compose faces using sharp, geometric forms. Although this style, at first glance, appears to be about the individual shapes and colors, it is more about light value, and how that causes the human eye to manipulate the shapes and colors involuntarily in order to find a cohesive form. This breakthrough in form and style led Tom to be named the artist in residence for the DDR Corporation, which sent him to a various cities around the country to create community art projects based on his unique style. In 2013 and 2014, he was the featured artist at the world’s largest chalk festival in Pasadena, CA. And shortly after that, At Art Basel in Miami Beach, FL, BMW unveiled their i8 concept car at Tom’s show, and he had the opportunity to present the highly esteemed artist, Romero Britto, with a portrait. Upon seeing Tom’s work, Britto, who is no stranger to people painting his image, remarked, “At least 500 people have painted my portrait. Yours is the most spectacular!” Most recently, Tom has painted for Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo, former SVP of Google and current Softbank CEO, Nikesh Arora, and TOMS founder, Blake MyCoskie, in addition to countless portraits of celebrities, world leaders and global icons. With all of the famous faces to have graced Tom Matousek’s canvases over the years, it is only fitting that he now turn his deftly trained brush towards one of the most iconic faces in the entire world, Mickey Mouse, thus making his childhood dream of being a Disney Artist come true.
