In July 2008, Thomas Kinkade in partnership with the Walt Disney Company created the first of a 12 piece collection (Disney Dreams Collection) in the release of “Snow White” which became the best selling painting ever in the 25 year history of Thom’s work as a published artist. In 6 months, it sold out! In February 2009, Pinocchio was released and in just 4 months, it was sold out. On June 25th, 2009, Peter Pan was released and sold out in just 20 hours!

Thomas Kinkade describes his new Masterpiece, “Tinkerbell and Peter Pan fly to Neverland” with the following:

“I’ve been able to take the legacy of Walt Disney’s beautifully crafted movies and create these paintings which celebrate the legacy and genius of Walt Disney and his gifted artists. These are visionary movies. You are transported in places of wonder when you watch the movies and that’s the same experience I want to give to collectors of my Disney Dreams Collection.

Tinkerbell and Peter Pan Fly to Neverland is the third painting in my Disney Dreams Collection. Peter Pan is one of my favorite Disney classics because it is the story of children who embark on living out childhood fantasies which I think we all share. James Barrie wrote the book “Peter Pan and Wendy” and it became a sensation in London at the turn of the twentieth century. His story was about a little boy named Peter Pan who refused to grow up. He visited these children and says, “Let’s go together to Neverland” where your childhood dreams are alive and where you can live out your fantasies. Now Barrie believed that everyone in their childhood shared those same fantasies, things like a mermaid lagoon, the grand adventure of battling pirates, or perhaps camping under the stars as the Indians did.

Now I had my choice in how to create this painting. I really wanted to start with the first scene in the movie, when Peter Pan knocks on the window of Wendy and her siblings and through the magic of Tinkerbell and her Pixie dust, they fly at night over London on their way to Neverland. Then when they move to Neverland they live out their childhood fantasies, they encounter the Lost Boys, the Indian Encampment, Captain Hook, his first mate Smee, and the ticking of the crocodile. So I wanted to capture the historical romance of London in my painting along with the transformation from London to the fantasy world of Neverland.

To create my painting, I had the famous story and wondrous characters of Peter Pan to develop in just one image. So instead of just painting one scene from the movie, I chose to do a panorama of the entire narrative in one painting just like I did in my Pinocchio piece. This way when your eye moves around the image, you tell the entire story of the movie.

I decided to put both the real and fantasy world in this painting. We have the children flying over vintage London, the Tower Bridge and of course, Big Ben. We then move from the real world to the soft transition of the clouds which leads us to Neverland. So I decided to start with the beginning of the story with the children flying over Neverland featuring Tinker Bell who is the operative character of the entire story.

Now there is so much micro-detail to this painting that I have to encourage people to go in close, get your magnify glass out and take a look. I’ve spent well over 350 studio hours into this piece, much of it focusing on the tiny details for all to enjoy. I had to use sophisticated optics to come in close enough to fuse the details. I’m able to bring the image up very close artificially through magnification techniques and paint right into it then I fuse that with the final detail.

To the left of Neverland you will see the Indian encampment with the smoke and several Indians dancing around the campfire. You’ll see Captain Hook with his crew aboard the pirate ship near the cove where the waterfalls come down. You’ll see the Mermaid Lagoon featuring a couple of mermaids. You’ll also see a distant ship which is a tribute to Walt Disney who loved to sail.

In the London portion of the piece, you’ll see individually detailed cars on the London Bridge. A good friend of mine was playing Devil’s advocate and asked me if there were cars at the time Peter Pan was written? The book was really popular around 1910 to 1912 but the setting could have easily been before that. But then there’s the fact that if you visit the ride “Peter Pan’s Flight” at Disneyland, when you fly over London, you’ll see little lights representing vehicles moving on the London Bridge. So I did the same really as a tribute to the “Peter Pan Flight” ride at Disneyland. In the movie you’ll see flat backgrounds due to Disney running out of budget. They really couldn’t animate those backgrounds as it turned out so I did it for them in my own way.

Look closely throughout the painting and you’ll see tributes I made to Disney and to the Disney traditions. One of the traditions is hidden Mickey Mouse ears which you’ll see throughout the Disney theme parks, rides, and movies. It’s an inside reference the Disney artists have done for decades and I wanted to be a part of that tradition as well. Look at the details I put into the village of London surrounded by the Thames River: we have St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower Bridge, there’s a Mickey Mouse balloon vendor, we have Nana the dog who had Pixy Dust sprinkled on her, we have a tribute to Snow White and Pinocchio who you can see holding hands. The time on Big Ben says 8:02 which represents the year I got married in ’82 as an inside reference to an artist who loves his wife and wants to celebrate the fact that this year we just celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary.

I had a ton of fun doing the clouds. To the right we have the sailing ship which represents the transformation back from the fantasy world of Neverland to London. Then I chose to have the clouds represent some of the key characters in the movie. We have the Indian Chief, Smee, Captain Hook, the crocodile rising out of the mist of the clouds, and of course, the Lost Boys. Walt Disney’s Peter Pan represented for me a wonderful flight of imagination and I hope my painting does the same for you.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 5:28 pm and is filed under Tinkerbell and Peter Pan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.