Deer Hidden in the Forest - Done for Bambi

Gustaf Tenggren spent only three years at the Disney Studio as an inspirational sketch artist but produced many beautiful paintings styling backgrounds and atmosphere that influenced Snow White, Pinocchio, several shorts and to a lesser degree Bambi. Before leaving Disney in January 1939 he spent days at Yosemite painting the woods and flora for the upcoming Bambi. They were so DETAILED that they took as much as three days each to paint and most were impossible to use. The films styling turned to the minimal detailed impressioism of the paintings of Tyrus Wong. --- Described by "The Wonderful World of Animation Gallery" : The artwork measures 17.5" x 11". The forest setting for Disney’s classic film, Bambi, gave the studio an opportunity to create more complex and detailed backgrounds than anyone had ever seen, and they certainly succeeded in doing so. This concept piece shows that even in the early stages of planning, these meticulous backgrounds were in the forefront of the artists’ minds, as a massive, tangled web of tree trunks and branches surround a small clearing in which a tiny fawn lies. A great amount of depth is given to the piece by using darker colors to shadow those branches which cut across the foreground, while using lighter colors to accent and illuminate the trees that twist in the background. The forest truly becomes a character all its own in this piece just as it did in the movie itself. ---
The size of the faun image is 0.25" h x 0.25" w. --- A nice photo of Tenggren painting in the forrest can be found on page 38 of "Before The Animation Begins"(1996) by John Canemaker. This is my favorite Disney related text.