Sleeping Beauty, Forest Background

This forest background was painted by Eyvind Earle, but not for inclusion in the Disney feature film. Instead, it was used in a contemporary, 1959 documentary on the making of Sleeping Beauty. In the documentary, Earle is actually shown painting a background. At first he is shown in front of an unfinished background painting on which he has just placed some blocks of color. Then the film cuts to a more finished background. There is another cut to some footage of the artist standing in front of this, the final version of the background painting with Earle adding some final touches. To my knowledge, this is the only painting done by Earle for Sleeping Beauty which is actually documented as being by Earle, by virtue of the existence of the promotional film.