Disney Treasures - An Inspirational Story
A few years ago I received from my sister in law one of my favourite gifts ever - a book called The Disney Treasures.
The Disney Treasures is a fantastic book that is a must read for any illustrator or aspiring illustrator that chronicles the life, successes and failures, from birth to end, of a Mr Walter Disney. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.
It’s an inspiring read as author Robert Tieman describes how Walt Disney started life fascinated by illustration and moving onto an interest in animation that spawned the movies and experiences many of us know and love today. There was failure along route that proves that it’s the most tenacious of us that achieve success.
Disney Memorabilia
Roberts book includes a narrative CD that I’ve never bothered to listen to, and is rammed packed with a fascinating array pockets and sleeves containing copies of tickets, hand written notes, sketches and letters by Walt - these little snippets of the original materials that featured in the history of Disney are what really make the book extra special.
I will share some of them with you, but I’d advise any artist to purchase the book to view them all.
Walt’s Failure
The Disney Treasures starts off by describing in detail how Illinois born (1901) Walter Elias Disney first showed a strong interest in illustration at the age of 10 and was keen to enter into training in the arts. From that point onwards his young life was consumed with a determination to succeed with a career in the illustrative arts.
Young Walt experienced considerable failure along the way - in his late teens Walt created his first animation of ‘Alices Wonderland’, hiring a four year old girl to act as Alice, and to ‘jump’ into the cartoon world as part of his ‘Laugh O Gram’ studio series. It was his first stab at animation and unfortunately due to high production costs his studio eventually went bankrupt.
Soon after this in 1923 Walt travelled to his brother Roy in Los Angeles and it was at this point that he was contacted by a New York movie distributor Margaret Winkler interested in reviving the Alice series using the same actress and a set of 12 Alice Comedies were created. Walt and Roy signed his first contract with the producer and the Disney Bros Studio (Hollywood’s first cartoon studio) was born.
From The Book
Above: Some paper masks of the Pinocchio characters. This movie was two years in the making, and contained some of Disney’s greatest special effects to date, such as the smoke swirling from a cigar, the glow from a candle flame, and the twinkle and glitter of stars within some scenes.
Above: In 1939 Walt received a one time request to create a design for navy insigna. Two years later Disney were active in supporting the war and dealt with hundreds of similar requests for military design work. Walt’s art staff burned the midnight oil keeping up with demand, and didn’t charge a penny.
Above: Walt launched his dream of a ‘make believe land’ in 1955 after pondering from the late 1930s onwards about a special place where adults and children could have fun together.
Above: More amazing inserts from The Disney Treasures book. This time a small version ‘replica book’ of the book at the beginning of the Sleeping Beauty animated feature.
