After Bill Perkins graduating from Art Center College of Design in 1980, he pursued his career in fine art. The lure of plein air painting and traveling drew him first to Mexico to paint for his first one man show. Soon after he was accepted into galleries in the Esther Wells gallery in Laguna Beach, Ca. and Shriver gallery Taos, New Mexico, his work was exhibited at the Springville Museum in Utah in 1984, and the 65th annual National Watercolor Society show the following year. Before his 30th birthday, the Monterey Museum of Art held an exhibition for he and three other artists based on their painting trip abroad through France, Italy, and Spain, following the footsteps of great impressionists and plein air artists. The following year Bill became a founding member of the PAPA, Plein-Air Painters of America, where he painted and exhibited his work annually for the first 5 years.
With the economic recession in 1985 and galleries struggling, he joined the Walt Disney Animation Studio as a layout artist and eventually art director. For the next nine years he worked on a string of hits including Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and art directed Aladdin. He went on to work on many other animated and live action films such as Shrek, Space Jam, Tangled, Frozen, and Zootopia, Mary Poppins Returns, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and Marvel animated series. During his 37-year film making career he worked on over 32 films and TV shows. Throughout his years in the animation field, Bill has continued to paint and teach drawing, painting, color and composition through the New Masters Academy and is currently teaching at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena California, along with open plein-air workshops.
Over his career Bill’s work has been published in more than 30 books, including The Enchanted Isle with the Plein Air Painters of America, Stokes of Genius volume 5, as well as several newspapers and periodicals, Step by Step, Post, Entertainment Weekly, LA Times, American Artist magazine, This Month on the Peninsula.
Time Magazine; Nov 9, 1992 https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,976941-1,00.html
Forbes: May 24, 2019
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshweiss/2019/05/24/aladdin-92s-art-director-bill-perkins-talks-about-granting-the-movies-artistic-wishes/?sh=2637148d624a
Most recently Bill’s watercolor “Idle Time” won first place in the TAG gallery Excellence in Watercolor on March 8th 2025.
