February'10 

While some painters boast an extensive art school background, George Scribner credits
night school. While working for Disney Studios  - animating on "The Black Cauldron", directing "Oliver and Co." and "The Prince and the Pauper", and story work on "Lion King", then working as animation director for Imagineering - the studio offered night classes in painting taught by Steve Huston.

He started working with small canvases, using a limited palette.   George offers this advice to a beginner: "Value carries everything.  Start out working just with value - get a tube of black and a tube of white and make a couple of puddles of grays - three different grays.  And that's all.  There's a quote that goes ' Value does the work, color gets the credit.'"

Working small allowed him to work fast, and focus on what's important.  There was also a practical aspect to working small - most all of George's paintings from his first five years were thrown away.  "They were soooo baaaad." 

George cites value and composition as two fundamental levels where a painting can fail.  "If you don't get these things right, people won't know where to look and their eye goes all over the place.  Ken Auster, a great teacher, said we should always ask, 'Why am I painting this?'  Knowing why you're painting something will allow you to create a focused piece."  

For inspiration?   "Spanish artist Joaquin Sarolla and John Singer Sergeant.  For value and draftsmanship, they're gods."  George also has high praise for his colleagues at Imagineering: "The thing is, no matter how good you get, there's always someone better - like Tom Gilleon at Imagineering.  I look at his stuff and its just….(awestruck sounds).  He's fantastic. " 

Having met so many great painters at Imagineering and the animation studio - George suggested they have a "Paint the Day at the Park" event, where the artists go to Disneyland and paint what they found that day.   His suggestion was met with polite nods, and then forgotten.  Still, what a cool idea.  Come on Bob Iger, I know you're an avid FLIP reader!  Make it so!

A look through George's website reveals a vast portfolio of paintings from Panama. "I was born and raised in Panama."  George explains, " My father moved there after World War II, and me and my brother grew up there." 

When the country announced they would be expanding the Panama Canal, George got an idea. "When the canal was originally built, the government paid artists to chronicle the process in paintings. I thought it would be cool to do the same thing with the expansion, a kind of continuation of what was done before.  So I put together a pitch to paint the expansion project."  The Government of Panama bought the pitch, and George is the official artist of the project.  When asked how he managed to pitch this to the government, George would say only, "I've got some connections in shipping."  

The Canal paintings are done gratis, though Panama pays for all expenses.  While getting a government to sponsor an art project would be a long shot in the U.S., George explains, " The government down there is pretty sophisticated about art.  They really value it."  The canal project also gives him an opportunity to do his own artwork of Panamanian life, as seen left.

George likes to work in oil. "I get great edges in oil that I can't get using acrylics."  He uses water-based oils when traveling, for easier clean up.  "I hate lugging turp around, and can't imagine getting it in Panama, what their turpentine must be like - cheap grade gasoline." 

Next up, George is heading to Uruguay for a five month stint teaching animation at University of Ort - Uruguay.  "They were looking for someone who could speak Spanish, and having grown up in Panama, I said 'Si.'"   

George's work is available in California at The Disneyland Gallery in Anaheim, and Segil Fine Art in Monrovia, and in Panama at Galeria Mery Palma in Panama City.  Prints are also available on-line through this website.