About Bruce

Here's a brief history of Bruce McIntyre, Walt Disney Animator and creator of the Audio-Visual Drawing Program and the well known Drawing Textbook.

Born and raised in San Diego, CA, Bruce McIntyre attended ArtCenter and Chouinard Art Institute, both in Los Angeles, CA. He later went on to work as an artist in the animation department of the Walt Disney Studios from 1937 to 1949. During that time, he worked on the Walt Disney classics, Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Fantasia as well as many others.

After working for many years as an animator, Bruce realized that anyone can learn to draw. For himself, as well as many of the other animators he worked with, the ability to draw did not come from a natural talent — they all had to “figure it out” with lots of trial and error and as much help from experienced illustrators as they could get.  He decided to leave Disney and develop a method of teaching drawing that would make the ability to draw achievable by anyone. This was the beginning of the Audio-Visual Drawing Program with the Seven Principles of Drawing at it’s core.

Bruce felt one of the best ways to make this program widely available would be to teach drawing in the public school system. In order to teach, he obtained a degree in education from Occidental College. He went on to teach elementary school students to draw in Carlsbad, CA for 25 years. At the same time he taught drawing to adults at Orange Coast College and at Golden West College, both in Orange County, CA. Additionally, he worked with Coastline Community College to create two television courses: Freehand Sketching and Applied Sketching Techniques, which have been shown in many colleges throughout the United States and Canada.

Bruce wrote nine books on drawing, and a Self-Study course. He has done nine television series and a video series called “California Easel Series” for the home and school. Bruce considered drawing a valuable communication skill to show what things look like, how they work, and how they fit together.