The John Lennon Sketchbook, a Short Animation Made of Lennon’s Drawings

In 1986, Yoko Ono com­mis­sioned the Oscar-win­ning ani­ma­tor John Cane­mak­er to bring to life the draw­ings and doo­dles of John Lennon (1940–1980), cul­mi­nat­ing in the release of a short film called The John Lennon Sketch­book. Almost 30 years lat­er, that film has now been offi­cial­ly released on YouTube.

A prod­uct of Liv­er­pool’s art schools, John Lennon drew through­out his life, illus­trat­ing two of his books with play­ful draw­ings, and draw­ing Christ­mas Cards for Oxfam, just to cite two exam­ples. You can see Lennon’s visu­al tal­ents on full dis­play in The John Lennon Sketch­book, a short ani­ma­tion that is pret­ty whim­si­cal and fun — until the very end, when Lennon seem­ing­ly pre­dicts his own vio­lent death in the audio record­ing that serves as the film’s sound­track.

The John Lennon Sketch­book will be added to the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our larg­er col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More. 

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via Car­toon Brew

Relat­ed Con­tent:

I Met the Wal­rus: An Ani­mat­ed Film Revis­it­ing a Teenager’s 1969 Inter­view with John Lennon

The Bea­t­les: Why Music Mat­ters in Two Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

John Lennon Illus­trates Two of His Books with Play­ful Draw­ings (1964–1965)

Bed Peace Revis­its John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Famous Anti-Viet­nam Protests