These two original drawings were hand-sketched and painted (NOT reproductions) by longtime animator and Disney Legend Floyd Norman.

Norman joined the Walt Disney Studio in 1956, and immediately began work as an inbetweener on Sleeping Beauty. He then went on to help animate the classics, One Hundred and One Dalmatians and Sword in the Stone. Shortly after, Walt’s continued unhappiness with the story development of his latest production (and the last animated feature that he would personally oversee)—The Jungle Book—prompted him to reassign both Norman and writer/animator Larry Clemmons to the task. Following Disney’s death, Norman left the studio to start his own film company, but later returned on a temporary basis to assist in the production of Robin Hood—a project flailing under the new studio leadership. In the 1980s, he would be tapped to write the Mickey Mouse comic strip, the last to do so before the series was discontinued. Norman’s long-standing relationship with the studio continued in the decades following, as he worked on such films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, and Dinosaur, as well as the beloved Pixar features, Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. Disney’s first African-American animator, Floyd Norman represents a powerful, positive force in a time of tumult and change at both the studio—with the passing of its founder—as well as in American society. He was named a Disney Legend in 2007, and less than a decade later, the documentary Floyd Norman: An Animated Life was released, chronicling and celebrating an exceptional and historic career.

Both drawings represent Disney characters familiar to Norman, thanks to his impressive list of credits at the studio. The first drawing, done in the spring of 2015, features Baloo and Mowgli from The Jungle Book, while the second, from about eight months later, is an original concept based on characters from One Hundred and One Dalmatians.