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jbriskin — Bill Peet
#childrensbookillustration #disneyanimation
Published: 2021-01-29 23:34:28 +0000 UTC; Views: 1287; Favourites: 7; Downloads: 0
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Happy 106th birthday to children's author and illustrator -- and former Walt Disney Animations Studios story artist -- Bill Peet (January 29, 1915 -- May 11, 2002).Peet discovered a love of drawing and painting at an early age. Although this passion got him in trouble during his school days, it resulted in a long career in animation and literature that shaped the childhoods of countless people.
Peet graduated from the Herron School of Art and Design (where he met his wife Margaret) and initially tried to build a career as a painter. However, after a few early successes and a lot of struggle, he abandoned this dream to search for something steadier. This drove him to Walt Disney and the early Disney company. He began as a lowly in-betweener, filling in the details on Donald Duck in an annex building, a job that he grew to despise so much that he threw a fit and stomped back home.
Fortuitously, this tantrum occurred just as he made an impression with character designs he'd submitted for Pinocchio and, instead of being fired, he was transferred to become a storyboard artist. From there, he rose through the ranks until he became a story artist working alongside Walt Disney himself.
He worked on a number of feature films while at Disney, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Fantasia, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and The Sword in the Stone (the latter two of which he storyboarded all by himself). He also directed some short features, including two based off his own ideas (which he had planned to develop into books)-- Lambert the Sheepish Lion and Goliath II.
During this time, Peet began his most well-known work: his series of children's books. His first, Hubert's Hair-Raising Adventures, was published n 1959.
Eventually growing tired of Walt Disney's controlling nature, dramatic mood swings, and temper tantrums, Peet left the studio in 1964 (after getting into a dispute with Walt over his initial treatment for The Jungle Book) and devoted himself to working as a full-time storybook author. (For his contributions to the studio, he was named a Disney Legend in 1996.) His books often drew inspiration from the farms and circuses he visited in childhood. While whimsical, they contained moral lessons about topics such as self confidence, teamwork, and conflict resolution. Peet was also adamant that children learn how to teach themselves, so his text included difficult words and contextual clues so his readers could piece together the words' meanings without needing to ask for help.
Bibliography:
Reference image: images.indianahistory.org/digi…
