1967 Snow White Lakeside Toys Drawing Portfolio

In the 1960s and 70s, Lakeside Toys of Minneapolis, MN produced a number of light-up drawing tables for children. These light boards were designed for use with their themed story sheet portfolios. Several different packets were available, including Snow White. It dates from 1967.

Portfolio envelope and drawing sheets.

An Electric Drawing Desk with four different portfolios: Francie & Barbie, Mickey Mouse Club, Snow White, and American Heros.

Original drawing table box.

The Mickey Mouse Club portfolio dates from 1965. It happens to also contain one sheet featuring the Seven Dwarfs. See the complete set at Sam's Toy Box.

How to Draw Snow White Step-by-Step

Snow White drawing tutorial posted by The Art of Nyko PK16.

Screen Captures...

How to Draw Dopey Tutorial

On April 2nd, the Disney Parks Blog posted a video tutorial on how to draw Dopey.

A couple of screen captures...

Special thanks to 1937fan of Whistle While We Blog for the notification on this video. Also see the Grumpy tutorial from last year.

"Learn To Draw Grumpy" Tutorial

Park guests that visit the Animation Academy at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida can partake in a class on how to draw a Disney character. The instruction occurs approximately every 30 minutes. Guests work at professional drawing boards to produce their sketches.

Yesterday, the Disney Parks Blog posted a "Learn To Draw Grumpy" video which features artist Brian James Fichtner showing us the ropes.

Start by drawing a circle...

Here's an interview from last March with Brian at the Animation Academy.

Videos posted by Disney Parks Blog.

Special thanks to Nick at Disney Musings for the heads-up on this one.

Draw 50 Princesses

Front Cover

Draw 50 Princesses is, as the title suggests, a how-to book on drawing Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and a host of other princess folk. That's not all. The learn-through-visuals style book also contains a royal court of other mythical characters including kings, queens, wizards, dragons, fairies, magic wands, goblets, and even Romeo and Juliet.

 Title Page

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Artist Lee J. Ames got his first job at Walt Disney Studios when he was eighteen. That was back in 1939. He won a contest that Disney was running to find new artists. Lee headed to Los Angeles and worked "in a minor capacity" on Fantasia and Pinocchio. He missed his home, however, and after only three months, moved back. Yet, that was just the start of his drawing career. 

Ames worked at animation, comics, advertising, teaching, and illustrating. He also authored over 35 books, mostly the Draw 50 series which to date have sold more than two million copies. He says in his bio...

"All [these] have helped me happily avoid facing reality."

A happy free spirit, Lee passed away in June of 2011 at the age of 90.

_____________

Introduction

The Snow White pages...

Dwarfs...

Magic Mirror...

Poisoned Apple...

Warlock (could easily be transformed into the Witch)...

Castle...

Draw 50 Princesses: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Many More. Publisher: Watson-Guptill (2008), 64 page, ISBN-10: 9780767927987.

Drawing Snow White

Here's another tutorial on how to draw Snow White, this one from WikiHow.

Step #1:

Sketch Snow White's body. Draw a vertical line with a curve where the bust will be crossed with a horizontal line for the arms. Then draw an oval on either side of the horizontal line for the hands. On top of the vertical line, make an oval shape for the head. Make a cross on the face to create guidelines for facial features later.

Step #2:

Draw an oval for the torso. Under that, make a curvy skirt shape.

Step #3:

Add the eyes on the horizontal guideline of the face. Draw the eyebrows above. Mouth smiling, slightly open. Small curve for the nose, between the eyes and mouth. Outline the hair using a wavy line. Begin at the top of the head and end at the chin. Draw two outward curving lines from the chin for the neck

Step #4:

Detail the dress. Continue shaping the corset on the torso, and add movement to the skirt. The sleeves should be short and puffy. Put a big collar on the neck.

Step #5:

Add detail to the arms and hands.

Step #6:

Carefully outline the image, erasing all pencil lines when you finish.

Step #7:

Color the image. Add shadows and highlights if desired.

Images and instruction copyright WikiHow. Creative Commons License.

For more Snow White tutorials, see the earlier drawing lesson by Dawn Darko and also the How to Draw books.

"How To Draw Snow White" Book

 1993 Front Cover

In the 1990s, publisher Walter Foster released the Disney How to Draw Series, a collection of instruction books featuring characters from the animated films. These oversize softcovers contain easy step-by-step lessons for drawing both the main characters and the supporting cast.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was one of these early titles (along with Bambi, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin). Although marketed for children, the instruction is useful for anyone first learning to sketch these illustrated figures.

The introductory pages give a little history on the making of the film and then some basic information on general drawing techniques. The first lesson begins with Snow White's head and facial expressions...

A nice feature of this book is its colorful background imagery. Whether it's the wishing well or a forest glade, these designs only help to enhance the experience of the drawing instruction. The compilation books which were published later do not include this lovely aspect.


Next are steps in drawing the full body followed by some action poses...

The 44-page book includes similar instruction for all of the Dwarfs, the Queen and Witch, the Prince, and the Huntsman. Also covered are the forest animals, the Queen's raven and even a sinister vulture.

1993 Back Cover

How to Draw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1993 Edition

Illustrated by David Pacheco and Diana Wakeman

ISBN-10: 1560101644

ISBN-13: 978-1560101642

In the 2000s, the collection was renamed the Disney Learn to Draw Series and updated with more books from other films. Today, the Snow White title is no longer available new, although it can be picked up used via any number of online resellers.

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How to Draw Princesses (later released as Learn to Draw Princesses) is a 32-page compilation of drawing instruction taken somewhat from the individual books. It features each of the six princesses pictured on the cover plus Tinker Bell. Introduction written by Catherine McCafferty and published by Walter Foster in 2004.

While this title gives the budding artist a broader sampling of princesses to choose from, it does not include any of the supporting characters.

The "How to Draw" cover updated to "Learn to Draw".

How to use this book...

The Snow White instruction pages are fewer and more basic than those found in her original 1993 How-to-Draw book.

See the book in its entirety on Scribd or purchase it cheap at Amazon or from the publisher.

ISBN-10: 1560106999

ISBN-13: 9781560106999

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In 2010, Walter Foster published an updated version of Learn to Draw Favorite Princesses. The book included the newest character to join the princess team, Tiana. Also added were Mulan and Pocahontas plus numerous supporting characters from the more recent films. No new material, however, was added to the original three princesses, and Tink was bumped to the Learn to Draw the Fairies of Pixie Hollow book.

All images copyright Disney

ISBN-10: 1600581455
ISBN-13: 978-1600581458