Dick Duerrstein is an American painter of Disney Fine Art, who worked as the Creative Director for the Walt Disney Company's Consumer Products Division for more than 2 decades.
Like most artists, Dick Duerrstein found his calling early in life. He remembers that his "mother's shopping list always included a note to buy [him] another ream of white paper to draw on." [1]
After graduating from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Duerrstein took a job at the Walt Disney Company, where he soon worked his way up the ladder and became the Creative Director for the company's Consumer Products Division. It was here that he was able to work and study alongside many iconic Disney animators, including Ward Kimball [2] (a member of Disney's Nine Old Men, creator of Dumbo, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and Jiminy Cricket) and Chuck Jones [3] (creator of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies).
After 22 years at Disney, Duerrstein left to pursue a career in Disney Fine Art. He comments on this decision in the July 2007 issue of Art Business News: "I got a wild hair to start doing characters in more artistic ways. It was difficult in the beginning because there wasn't any framework for doing this kind of work commercially." [4] Nearly 10 years after making this decision, Duerrstein has succeeded in becoming one of the most collected painters of Disney Fine Art. [2]
Having such a long history designing a wide variety of projects at Disney has given Dick a heightened sense of design, which is apparent in his fine art pieces.
In homage to the original character construction, Dick first draws the figure onto canvas using a light blue line, exactly like an animator would do. After this, he begins to layer the thick hues of oil and acrylic paint on top, yet he still lets the original blue line peek through. This allows each piece to still remain true to the original creator's concept while allowing for Duerrstein's trademark energy and movement to come through. [1]
Walter Elias Disney was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards earned and nominations by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Disney was the first person to be nominated for Academy Awards in six different categories, a record he shares with Alfonso Cuaron and George Clooney.
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California.
Dick Bruna was a Dutch author, artist, illustrator and graphic designer.
Ubbe Ert Iwwerks, known as Ub Iwerks, was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentious relationship with his father, who abandoned him as a child. Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney while working at a Kansas City art studio in 1919. After briefly working as illustrators for a local newspaper company, Disney and Iwerks ventured into animation together. Iwerks joined Disney as chief animator on the Laugh-O-Gram shorts series beginning in 1922, but a studio bankruptcy would cause Disney to relocate to Los Angeles in 1923. In the new studio, Iwerks continued to work with Disney on the Alice Comedies as well as the creation of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character. Following the first Oswald short, both Universal Pictures and the Winkler Pictures production company insisted that the Oswald character be redesigned. At the insistence of Disney, Iwerks designed a number of new characters for the studio, including designs that would be used for Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar.
John Hench was an American artist, designer and director at The Walt Disney Company. For 65 years, he helped design and develop various Disney attractions and theme parks.
Cinderella is a 1950 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney. Based on the fairy tale of the same name by Charles Perrault, it is the 12th Disney animated feature film. The film was directed by Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi. Mack David, Jerry Livingston, and Al Hoffman wrote the songs, which include "Cinderella", "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes", "Oh, Sing Sweet Nightingale", "The Work Song", "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", and "So This is Love". It features the voices of Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Rhoda Williams, James MacDonald, Luis van Rooten, Don Barclay, Mike Douglas, William Phipps, and Lucille Bliss.
Glen Keane is an American animator, author and illustrator. He was a character animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios for feature films including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan and Tangled. He received the 1992 Annie Award for character animation and the 2007 Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contribution to the field of animation. He was named a Disney Legend in 2013.
Marc Fraser Davis was a prominent American artist and animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, the famed core animators of Disney animated films, and was revered for his knowledge and understanding of visual aesthetics. After his work on One Hundred and One Dalmatians he moved to Walt Disney Imagineering to work on rides for Disneyland and Walt Disney World before retiring in 1978.
The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is a private, independent, four-year college of fine arts and design founded in 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri. The college is an accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD) and the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. It has approximately 75 faculty members and 700 students. KCAI offers the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, in which students undertake a comprehensive liberal arts program with a studio major in animation, art history, ceramics, creative writing, digital filmmaking, fiber arts, graphic design, illustration, interactive art, painting, photography, printmaking, product design, or sculpture. KCAI offers a minor in Art and Design Entrepreneurship, a collaborative program with University of Missouri – Kansas City Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt and Roy Disney guided the merger of the Chouinard Art Institute and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to establish the California Institute of the Arts.
Eyvind Earle was an American artist, author and illustrator, noted for his contribution to the background illustration and styling of Disney's animated films in the 1950s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rahr West Art Museum, Phoenix Art Museum and Arizona State University Art Museum have purchased Earle's works for their permanent collections. His works have also been shown in many one-man exhibitions throughout the world.
Lorenzo is a 2004 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation about a cat, Lorenzo, who is "dismayed to discover that his tail has developed a personality of its own." The short was directed by Mike Gabriel and produced by Baker Bloodworth. It premiered at the Florida Film Festival on March 6, 2004, and later appeared as a feature before the film Raising Helen; however, it did not appear on the DVD release of the film. It is based on an original idea by Joe Grant, who started working on the film in 1949, but it was eventually shelved. It was later found along with Destino. The short was intended to be one of the segments for the proposed but never completed Fantasia 2006. It was included on the Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection Blu-ray/DVD set released on August 18, 2015.
Floyd E. Norman is an American animator, writer, and comic book artist. Over the course of his career, Norman has worked for various animation companies, among them Walt Disney Animation Studios, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Ruby-Spears, Film Roman and Pixar.
Disney Consumer Products, Inc. is the retailing and licensing subsidiary of the Disney Parks, Experiences and Products segment of The Walt Disney Company. Previously, Consumer Products was a segment of Disney until 2016, then a unit of Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media (2016–2018).
Retta Scott was an American artist. She was the first woman to receive screen credit as an animator at the Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Noah Elias is an American artist, known simply as Noah, working within the fine art market and custom art scene. He is best known for painting the Suki art car in 2 Fast 2 Furious, but is also a widely collected painter of Disney Fine Art.
Michael W. Royer is an American comics artist and inker, best known for his work with pencilers Russ Manning and Jack Kirby. In later life Royer became a freelance product designer and character artist for The Walt Disney Company.
The year 2008 involved animation-related events.
Barry R. Kooser is an American artist, painter, and educator who worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios between 1992 and 2003 as a background artist on films such as The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and as background supervisor on Brother Bear. After leaving Disney, he worked independently as a painter exhibiting and selling fine art in galleries around the US. While teaching animation and story-boarding at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, he met Worker Studio founder Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot, and became a partner at the Colorado animation studio. Barry has since left Worker Studio. He is the Founder, Executive Producer and Director at Many Hoops Productions.
Events in 1917 in animation.
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