Jose L. Gomez Blog

I've hit that infamous creative block that all artists must try to get over (or demolish). When I hit these walls I usually look for new kinds of art to inspire me. Today I found these two great books by Walt Stanchfield.
He was the teacher who taught the artists at Disney to improve their art.

Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 2: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures

Walt Stanchfield (1919–2000) was an American animator, writer and teacher. Stanchfield is known for work on a series of classic animated feature films at Walt Disney Studios and his mentoring of Disney animators.

Walter Stanchfield was born in 1919 in Los Angeles, California.^[1] After graduating from high school in 1937, Stanchfield worked as an animator at the Charles Mintz Studio. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Navy. Returning to California, he briefly worked at the Walter Lantz Studio before joining Walt Disney Studios to work on the 1949 full-length animated feature The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. His career included work on every subsequent Disney animated feature including his work as a character animator on The Jungle Book and The AristoCats. His final film for Disney was The Great Mouse Detective in 1986. In 1987, Stanchfield served as the animation consultant on Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

In the 1970s, Stanchfield and Eric Larson created a training program for new animators at Disney studios. The program included weekly drawing classes and lectures. Stanchfied's students included numerous prominent animators, such as Brad Bird, John Lasseter, Don Bluth, Joe Ranft, John Musker, Ron Clements, Glen Keane,Andreas Deja, and Mark Henn.

In 2009, Stanchfield's lecture notes were compiled into the two-volume set Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes.^[2]

Thank you Wiki!