"Vinyard Harvest" Limited edition gallery wrapped canvas by Rob Kaz from the Disney Treasures collection.

"Vinyard Harvest" is a limited edition giclee on canvas by Rob Kaz. Part of the Disney Treasures collection from Disney Fine Art, this limited edition featuring Mickey and Minnie imagery comes gallery wrapped and ready to hang. It is also accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. The edition is limited to 1500 pieces. Item measures approximately 10 x 18 (no border)

A self-trained artist, Rob Kaz grew up in New Jersey where he enjoyed surfing, skating and hockey. After many cold and snowy winters, Rob sought warmer weather when deciding on a college and wound up in Orlando where he earned a B.S. in Criminal Justice from the University of Central Florida.

After his post-graduation hopes of working for the government in criminal justice came to a halt with a hiring freeze, fate stepped in and Rob began working for a number of small animation studios in the Central Florida area. Because Disney had recently closed their Florida-based animation studios, Rob found himself working "alongside quite possibly the most talented artists I've ever known, right there in those small studios. Their influence proved invaluable."

As his career continued to take a new direction with animation, Rob had the opportunity to work in many areas of film production. In particular, the time spent in character creation and environments heavily influenced his painting style.

For some time, Rob worked as a character artist for Electronic Arts (EA Sports Tiburon), one of the leading sports entertainment brands in the world, with top-selling videogame franchises. While at EA, he created human likenesses in games such as Madden NFL football and NCAA® Football.

When Rob took a leap of faith and began his fine art career, he knew one thing for certain. "I want people to be happy when they look at my work, so I create stories that personally make me smile or laugh. But I also want people to notice the technical side of my paintings. I put a lot of emphasis on lighting, composition and color when I paint. I think all of these aspects ultimately play a factor in deciding the emotional outcome of a finished painting."

When Rob paints, he imagines "places he'd rather be" and he imagines "friends along the way." Both are recurring themes throughout Rob's body of work and thus his paintings easily fall into one of the two categories (if not both). One particular "friend" is Beauregard the frog. Since his inception with "Hey You" and "Hey Me," Beau has appeared in every single painting Rob has created. If a painting is not focused solely around Beau, Rob will often times hide him in the painting … a fact that fans have latched onto and seem to have a lot of fun with in being the first to find him in the release of each new painting.

Today, Rob's work is a mirror of his background in animation. Rob is one of only a few artists granted the unique opportunity and license to paint Disney films (he is a Legacy artist with Disney Fine Art). "I am one of the biggest fans of animation art you'll meet and being able to paint Disney is really an honor," he says. "I have had the privilege of working with many Disney artists and they inspired me to make the transition from animation to fine art." With each Disney painting he begins, Rob sets the ultimate goal. "I want to have the story creators and animators of the movie see my work and give a thumbs-up. In no way do I wish to dishonor their masterpieces."

Rob has held many jobs - candy maker, movie projectionist, bike repairman and bar back - but by far this is the happiest he's ever been … being an artist.

On October 16, 1923, brothers Walt and Roy Disney founded an animation company called the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio following the production of their first short film Alice’s Wonderland. Riding on his success, Walt created a new cartoon character named Mickey Mouse, who starred in early short films, including Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy. In the 1930s, the cartoon studio, now named Walt Disney Productions, took on their greatest challenge to date: completing a feature-length animated movie. Snow White took three years to complete, but it quickly became the highest-grossing movie of the time. Through the 1940s and 1950s, Disney’s popularity grew with the production of more animated features like Bambi (1942), Cinderella (1950), and Peter Pan (1953). Though Walt Disney died in 1966, his company continued to grow by steadily producing more critically-acclaimed features as well as cultivating its own permanent cast of characters that included the family favorites, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy.

Over the years, Disney’s success has led them to explore other projects in addition to their animation ventures. In 1971, Walt Disney World, the iconic theme park based on an idea Walt had conceived in the 1950s, opened in Orlando, Florida. The company has also produced a number of successful live-action movies like Mary Poppins (1964) and Freaky Friday (1976) as well as a slew of popular television shows like The Mickey Mouse Club, many of which are shown on their own Disney Channel. More recently, Disney has teamed up with CGI animation production company Pixar to create computer-animated features like Finding Nemo (2003) and WALL-E (2008).