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Bill’s Mother is a fine artist and his Father, also an artist was in advertising. He grew up around the business from the 60’s through the 70’s. Encouragement as well as art supplies were always available. In 1980 he graduated from the Art Center College of Design with honors, and pursued his passion for painting. For the next six years he traveled the southwestern United States, selling his work in galleries in California, Arizona and New Mexico. In 1985 the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art held an exhibit for he and three other artists based on their three-month painting tour of France, Spain, and Italy. Though the group broke up the show was very successful. That group experience inspired him to explore the collaborative aspects of the animation business. In 1986 he was hired as a layout artist at Walt Disney Feature Animation on Oliver and Co. then continued on a string of hits including: Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast. He found the stylistic diversity required in the animation and film industry compelling as well as the enormous world wide audience that such films communicate to. Bill was called up to be a Layout lead on Rescuers Down Under where he helped the layout process through a period of transition into digital compositing. With the added complexity and labor required for the new technology he and two other artists developed a workbook as a tool to enhance the cinematic impact from story boarding to layout as well as more accurately budget and reveal workload requirements for subsequent departments. In 1990 he became the Art Director on Aladdin. As Art Director he designed the style and developed the first discrete style guide which was designed to mine the collaborative process and secure predictable outcomes. An avid lifelong student himself, Bill began teaching color, composition and design at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art. When he left Disney in 1994 he worked as a Visual Development artist, Art Director, and Concept Artist for Walt Disney Animation Studios on future projects.
