Brother Bear
Limited Edition Giclee on Canvas

More Information: An animated tale of brotherhood, bears, and breathtaking outdoor adventure, Brother Bear is an original story set in an idealized Pacific Northwest at the end of the Ice Age. Inspired by a timeless tradition of transformation stories found in many world cultures, the film follows the incredible adventures of a young man named Kenai who is transformed into a bear. The magnificent vistas of mountains, forests and rivers make the natural world itself a compelling character in Kenai's journey of self-discovery.

These limited-edition giclée on canvas prints capture two magnificent backgrounds direct from Disney's animated feature Brother Bear (2003). In order to capture the scope and grandeur of its Pacific Northwest setting, the filmmakers embarked on several research trips to Alaska, California, and Wyoming. In fact, background supervisor Barry Kooser and his team of artists took a painting trip in 2001 to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to study with renowned contemporary Western landscape painter Scott Christensen. He taught them how to simplify objects by getting the spatial dimensions to work first and working in the detail later. For this film, eighteen artists created about 800 backgrounds ranging in size from a twelve-inch field to dynamic vistas measuring two-feet high by four feet long. Kooser explains, "The backgrounds in this film are quite different from the watercolor approach we used in Lilo & Stitch. Our style here is very much like oil painting. It is similar to the style of Bambi, where the brushstrokes are more implied. It's an indicative approach that is rougher and sketchier as opposed to being fully rendered and overworked. There are parts of our backgrounds where there¹s quite a bit of detail, and then other parts where it's just left up to the individual's imagination to fill in the rest." The richness of the saturated color palette helps to create Kenai's "bear's eye" view.

These images were created using the fine art printing process of color reproduction known as giclée. In this process, an enhanced computer-based digital file is printed by spraying millions of pixel-sized drops of ink per second onto premium-quality, acid-free canvas with an enhanced printer, specially modified for fine art reproduction. The result are two dazzling landscape paintings that sweep you away into the natural wonderland of Brother Bear.