Lea Happe Happe 1
Professor Patricia Dahl
Art 112-751
20 February 2013 Walt Disney
Of all the artists in the history, just a few stand out as truly remarkable for their imagination and ingenuity. We were fortunate to have one of them in our century. He is a humble man remembered by most for his animation and theme parks. Many people do not know or understand what a visionary person this man was, not only with creating art in the brand new field of moving pictures but was also an engineering visionary. He was not just an artist but also a dreamer that brought his dreams to life. He came from a large family that was very poor and disadvantaged but hardworking. He is truly an example of the American dream. In his 65 years of life he built an amazing empire and he archived this with his skills as an artist, his name of course is Walt Disney.
Art takes on many forms, painting, pictures, sculptures, architecture, and the list goes on! Walt Disney did all of this with his art and more and wove it into a fun, interesting and educational creation. When Walt Disney started in his art as a child, the word was a very different place. There was no radio or television and a Frenchman named Louis Lumiere invented the first practical movie camera in 1895. Just five years later Walt Disney was born into this amazing age where technology would take art onto a completely new realm. Walt Disney was born into a time before the airplane was invented and he would live to see amazing inventions including man’s landing on the moon. Not only was Walt Disney a witness
Happe 2 to these amazing inventions creative imagination inspired imagination in others to create the wonders of the 20th century.
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was born in the Hermosa section of Chicago, Illinois on December 5, 1901. His father was Elias Disney, and his mother, Flora Call Disney. Walt had one sister and three brothers. He lived spent the bulk of his early childhood in Marceline, Missouri. He showed talents for drawing as a child and was selling his work in small ways. One of the things he did was caricatures and sold them for as much as twenty-five cents in a local barbershop. His family moved to Kansas City in 1912. Walt developed a fascination for trains. Walt’s first real job was working for the local railroads as a snack vender. Walt went to at McKinley High School in Chicago. He took formal art and photography classes there as well as being a cartoonist for the school paper. Even as Walt attended highs school, he also studied at the Chicago Art Institute in the evening. When Walt turned 16, he had a strong desire to serve his country in the First World War and tried to join the army but did not qualify because he was too young. After being rejected by the army, he was accepted by the Red Cross and was sent to France where he drove ambulances for about a year. When Walt returned from France, he pursued a career as an artist for a newspaper in Kansas City. After that, he worked at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animation. Around this time, Disney began experimenting with a camera and doing hand-drawn cell animation, and decided to open his own animation business. From the ad company, he recruited Fred Harman as his first employee. (Walt) In 1927, Walt created 26 black and white silent short cartoons featuring a new character, Lucky the Rabbit. Lucky the Rabbit looks remarkably similar to what would become the iconic figure Mickey Mouse. Lucky shape is almost exactly as Mickey Mouse’s, except for his ears. The
