Disney Limited Edition: Hello, Young Prince

DISNEY LIMITED EDITION: HELLO, YOUNG PRINCE

Jim Salvati

MEDIUM: Hand-Embellished Giclée Print on Canvas
SIZE: 16" x 20"
EDITION SIZE: 95
ARTIST: Jim Salvati
SIGNED: Hand-Signed by Artist
SKU: DFA-LE-HELLOYNGPRINCE

ABOUT THE IMAGE: Inspired by Walt Disney’s Bambi and features Bambi and Thumper meeting in the forest. 

ABOUT THE MEDIUM:  Limited edition prints are reproductions of an original piece of art work. The giclée prints on canvas are museum quality prints that last the upwards of 100 years. Giclée printing is a process that uses fade-resistant, archival inks and archival substrates to print on large format printers. The run of prints are capped at a specific number. Limited edition prints can be more valuable to art collectors than prints without a restricted number of copies because of the rarity of the prints. Each piece is hand-numbered and embellished by the artist.  Each piece also includes a Certificate of Authenticity.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:  "I'm a very regular guy; there's nothing fancy about me," says Jim, who grew up surfing the beaches of Southern California and went on to graduate from the prestigious Art Center College of Design in 1982.   "I tell my students that you don't have to be extremely talented to make it. You can make it in life on passion and determination."

Jim has plenty of those two attributes, and he most certainly has "made it" in the art world. He's been a prolific artist for movie studios and theaters, with a client list that includes Disney, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures and Radio City Music Hall. He was the master illustrator and conceptual artist behind many of the memorable images and finished paintings associated with the "Harry Potter" films.

He describes his style as "painterly realism", and his favorite subjects are people. Ask him about a painting, and he will tell you the subject's personal story.  Salvati sees his paintings as his portal into various cultures and different areas of society. "I like the connection between people and their culture," he says. "The different emotions, gestures, moods, environments, and style of people in my life and those that I cross paths with, all become part of my storytelling".

"Even with my Disney art, I think it's important to show who a person or character is and what is the most interesting part of their life—the part that is bold and has guts."  Character and boldness can be observed in the scenes that Salvati chooses to depict. They are often not only a defining moment of a film, but usually the most emotionally charged and sometimes heartbreaking. Bambi alone in the woods, the Huntsman with Snow White, and Scar leaving Simba in the canyon, are all turning points in the story, and when the main character had to show their "guts" or courage.

Working in oil paint, Salvati uses panel and sometimes mounted paper preferring the option of layering paint to create a lot of texture, as he feels that an uneven surface adds to the emotion of the story. "My paintings are extremely thick and layered and oil allows me the time I need to play with the color," he says.

For the past 22 years, he's been teaching at Art Center himself, a gig he's found just as rewarding and inspiring as painting. "I love teaching, and students respond to my style because I'm so down to earth," he says. A byproduct of his years as an instructor is his strong connection to artistic diversity as well as a careful observation of the changing world of art and how art interrelates with technology. His experience and knowledge cross many boundaries into Print, Film, Animation, and the fine arts.

ABOUT THE FILM: Bambi is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand and produced by Walt Disney.  The film is based on the 1923 book Bambi, a Life in the Woods by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten.  The film was released on August 13, 1942, and is the fifth Disney animated feature film.

The main characters are Bambi, a mule deer; his parents,the Great Prince of the forest and his unnamed mother; his friends Thumper, a pink-nosed rabbit; and Flower, a skunk; and his childhood friend and future mate, Faline. For the movie, Disney took the liberty of changing Bambi's species into a mule deer from his original species of roe deer, since roe deer are not native to North America. The film received three Academy Award nominations: Best Sound-Sam Slyfield, Best Song for "Love Is a Song" sung by Donald Novis and Original Music Score.

In June 2008, the American Film Institute presented a list of its "10 Top 10"—the best ten films in each of ten classic American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Bambi placed third in animation.  In December 2011, the film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.