Two Disney artists make millions of portraits:

 On Main Street,U.S.A., two Disney Cast Members capture the profiles of babies, grandparents, dogs,cats,parrots, horses,goats, a hedgehog and even a vintage car.

 Sometimes these Disney artists work from photos, but usually from the Guests themselves. Halos are sometimes placed above those who have died.

 Over the decades, the two have worked at the Disneyland Silhouette studio to create more than 4 million images, using surgical scissors to cut outlines of faces with black paper in half-minute that are placed on white backing.

 The studio opened on Main Street, U.S.A. in January 1956, six months after the park opened. Bonnie Elliott has 38 years; Sylvia Fellows,33 years. Two other Cast Members (artists) have shorter periods.

"I'm drawing with my scissors. It's very fun. It's like a game, " said Elliott, 61, of Redondo Beach.

 The studio is one of the few deliberately messy places in Disneyland Park: Cast Members are told to keep the paper scraps on the floor.

 Fellows has created up to 434 images in a shift. Elliott has done 472 pictures in eight hours; she can do some in as little as 15 seconds.

These Cast Members cut two mirror-image copies at a time. Each head image costs $9 each.

 A Northern California pastor asked church members to get their portraits done if they went to Disneyland so his wife could put them in their house. So these artists keep hearing from Guests who wanted portraits for "the pastor's wife."

 One day, a woman came in and said, "You know me. I'm the pastor's wife." She went on to collect portraits of 147 individuals and a dog.

 Fellows once cut the profile of a terminally ill child because her parents wanted to use the art for her grave. Others are replicated for tattoos or jewelry.

 Elliott had one couple get silhouettes when they were dating and later came back with their own childern and then their grandchildern.

 A Guest from Alamo, California brought his  two daughters. He recognized Fellows as having completed his 13-year-old portrait when she was 5.


The Walt Disney Company Cast Members are a talented group...Dr Lee