Drawing on Disneyland

Over on the Tony Isabella board we are talking about all things Disneyland and that got me thinking about a story Bill Stout told one Sunday while we were drawing a naked woman.

He was talking about how, for him, the most important aspect of drawing is putting down the line with confidence. He went one about how he hates it when he sees an artist who is unsure of where a line should go and so he/she feathers the line, using short strokes to find the one right line (I looked down at my drawing and sadly noted all the short strokes I used to find "the" line). He said, "You have to be confident in your line if you ever want to draw fast."

Bill learned that one summer when he worked at Disneyland doing portraits on the street. Bill said it was him and two or three other guys and they worked all day, most every day. It was a poor base pay, but you made your money on each drawing you completed, so he learned very quickly to put down a fast line with confidence. After he got the hang of it, he could fly through them, doing a portrait in about five minutes and that made for good money.

When they would finish a drawing, the person either took it with them, or if they liked it a lot, it went into a stack where another person was framing and matting the drawings. One day he looked over at a drawing in the stack for framing and the portrait looked more like a potato than a person.

It was one huge oval shape with these round shapes for eyes, nose and ears that looked more like the eyes on a spud than a human face. He thought, "My god, some of these guys are just horrible." He then wondered which of his associates drew this monstrosity. On closer inspection he saw the signature "William Stout" and decided he should slow down a bit.