A painting artist's work equals that of the size of an iceberg in the sense that most of it is unrevealed. An iceberg's mass is mostly hidden below the water level and most of an artist's work is myriads of ideas and endless numbers of sketches, which never come to the attention of his audience. Carl Barks was surely no exception! His vivid imagination pumped out ideas for new paintings just as it happened with stories during his comic book years, and he quickly jotted down the ideas on whatever was at hand; sheets of paper, notebooks, and tissues.
This page presents a few, specific examples of Barks' painting sketches namely the ones that were later shelved. Of course, he also made numerous sketches of motifs that would later emerge into paintings, but they are not the topic here. Neither are the preliminaries depicting isolated sections of the coming paintings. The sub-pages concentrate on the ideas that might have been but never were. The examples have been placed loosely in different main categories for easier access and comparison, and wherever it has been possible you will be supplied with Barks' own working titles for the painting ideas as well as a few editorial comments.

As mentioned, Barks used different media for sketching - and he also used different sorts of drawing material such as pencils, pens, and crayons - which mean that the sketches are not always very clear. But we should remember that Barks only made the sketches, filled as they are with clutters and smears, for his own reference archives, but, to us, they still represent a valuable asset in the way of understanding his enormous energy and unparalleled imagination.