Our instructors are some of the top artists in their field and have worked for national and international level clients. Some of these clients include Disney, Dreamworks, Blue Sky Studios, Apple computers, Penguin Putnam Publishing, Arthur Levine Publishing, National Geographic, and and many more. Read the bios below to find out more.
For the last 19 years Jake has worked on everything from animated films to comics to picture books. For several years he worked for Reel FX and Blue Sky Studios on such projects as Horton Hears a Who, Rio, and Epic. He is the creator of the popular Inktober drawing challenge. Jake currently works as an illustrator and cartoonist on children's books and comics. He works out of his home studio in Utah.
Will Terry has been a freelance illustrator for 23 years. He got his start working for magazines and newspapers in the Washington D.C. area. His early clients include publications such as Time, Money, WSJ and ads for Sprint, Pizza Hut, Fed Ex, and Master Card. He has illustrated about 30 children’s books for a number of publishers, including Random House, Simon & Schuster, Scholastic, and Penguin. He works out of his home studio in Utah.
Lee White has illustrated over 20 books and has an international client base. Some of his clients include National Geographic, Apple, Arthur Levine Publishing, Penguin Publishing, United Airlines and many more! He has been working for the past 15 years as a professional illustrator and has also taught at the college level for the past decade.
David Hohn has been working as a freelance illustrator and college instructor for the last 15 years. Working primarily in the juvenile and children's markets he has illustrated more than 40 children's picture books, middle grade and YA projects, along with countless theater poster, magazine and licensing projects. His days are spent in his studio imagining what it would be like to be someone else, doing something else – and then he paints it.
Michael Parker is a freelance illustrator, fine art painter, and teacher. Michael's focus in his work is representing the human figure through the use of narrative. He loves chocolate, kung-fu movies, a good car chase, turtles who know ninjitsu, and Norman Rockwell. He lives with his family in Utah.
Brooklyn Walker is a character designer and illustrator living in Los Angeles, California with her daughter and husband. She graduated from Brigham Young University in 2018 with a BFA in Illustration and is currently designing characters at Sony Pictures Animation.
Anna Daviscourt is a concept artist in the game industry, as well as a freelance illustrator. Her whimsical work ranges from loose and colorful sketches to finely detailed paintings. She also teaches independent studies at PNCA in Portland, OR, and dreams of one day owning a pet corgi!
Brian Ajhar is an award winning character designer and illustrator who specializes in the animation and publishing industry. Brian's newest project will be published in 2019 by Disney. Brian has been recognized multiple times by CA magazine and the Society of Illustrators.
Marco Bucci spent seven years working in animation studios before going freelance to pursue his passion of illustration. Since then, he has provided artwork for clients such as Disney, Lego, LucasArts, LucasFilm, and Mattel Toys. Marco now works primarily on picture books, but still retains a penchant for teaching.
With over 20 years of experience in illustration and toy design, Nate Baertsch has worked on everything from toy design for Masters of the Universe to comic book covers. Nate lives in Utah with his wife and kids.
Guy began illustrating at the age of 9. His first projects included his 4th grade bulletin board and numerous cartoon characters commissioned by his friends for 25¢. It wasn't until high school that Guy realized a person could make a living being an artist, and while in college, he got his first children's picture book job. Since then he has published a variety of work including book covers, children's games, early chapter books and picture books. He is thrilled to be making a living doing what he loves.
Nathan Hale is the creator of the widely celebrated Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales. He is the illustrator of the graphic novel Rapunzel’s Revenge, which was an Al Roker Book Club for Kids selection, an ALA Notable Book, and a YALSA Great Graphic Novel for Teens and earned three starred reviews. He is also the illustrator of several picture books. He lives in Provo, Utah, with his wife and their two children.
Shaun Keenan is a concept artist in the entertainment industry. He has done work for video games, animation and toy design, and has worked for studios such as Nintendo, Dreamworks TV, and Hasbro. He especially loves drawing dinosaurs and animals, and in 2018 he self published his first book "Dinosaurs of the Wild West."
Therese is a freelance illustrator based in Stockholm, Sweden, specialising in character design and realism. She works mainly in the field of advertising where she does final art, storyboarding for film and general concept art. She has been working full time as a freelancing illustrator since 2006.
Gina has been designing art for products for over 30 years. Some of her clients include: Target, Michaels, Walmart, Dollar Tree, Jo-Ann Stores Inc, Lowes, and Amazon, to name just a few. Her art is heartwarming and she has a depth of experience in both creating art and in working with a variety of clients.
Jim Madsen has been illustrating in the educational software industry, children's publishing, and advertising industry for the past 15 years. He has illustrated more than 75 books over this period of time. Jim is a graduate of Brigham Young University and lives in Provo, Utah with his wife Holly and three children. He enjoys the outdoors, golf, and riding Harley Davidson motorcycles.
David is a full time freelance illustrator after spending over a decade at Disney. He has worked freelance since 2005 nationally and international with assignments for magazines, book covers, ad campaigns and even coin design for the U.S. Mint. David also sells oil paintings and drawings in galleries around the U.S.A.
Mel Milton is an amazing artist who has worked as an interface web designer and later as a character animator for Disney Interactive for IPs like Van Helsing, Narnia Prince Caspian, Toystory 3, and Cars 2. While at Disney he illustrated The Smurfs book for Simon and Schuster, a hit with children around the world. Mel's work can be seen all over the internet as he has gathered an extensive following for his stylized characters and portraits that he shares almost daily.
Ann is the author of more than 15 picture books and many, many poems. She also wrote Writing Picture Books: A Hands On Guide from Story Creation to Publication. When she is not writing, you can find her taking long walks, watching spiders spin their webs and listening to her kitty cat purr.
Sterling Hundley is an internationally recognized illustrator, educator and speaker based in Richmond, Virginia. For nearly 20 years, Hundley's work has garnered international acclaim with commissions for clients as varied as Rolling Stone, Marvel, the Grammys, GQ, the New Yorker, Harper Collins and Random House. Sterling's work has been recognized by Graphis, Society of Illustrators, 3 x 3, and many more. Hundley is currently pursuing a career as a Painter, creating personal work for exhibition.
Writer and illustrator Mark Pett makes books. He is the “authorstrator” of This Is My Book!, Lizard From the Park, The Boy and the Airplane, The Girl and the Bicycle, and The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes. Before books, he created the syndicated comic strips Mr. Lowe and Lucky Cow. Mark lives in the Mountain West.
Tannie M. Smith is an Illustrator and Author in Austin, Texas. Previously she owned and operated the successful design and branding firm, tann|design. In 2011 she chose to close down her design business in order to spend more time with her family and return to illustration. Tannie has a strong appetite for knowledge and continuously seeks ways to learn and improve her skill by pestering any who are willing to teach her.
Britt Snyder is currently represented through The Meyer Gallery in Park City, UT, Abend Gallery in Denver, CO and Smash Gallery in San Francisco, CA. Britt has exhibited his paintings in Arcadia Contemporary Galley, Sloane Merrill Gallery, Principle Gallery, Atelier Gallery, Fitchburg State University and Fountain Street Gallery.
Ben Sowards dropped out of preschool so he could have more time for art. His work has appeared in everything from children's books, to coins for the U.S. Mint, to video games. He has also been a college professor for the past 17 years. He continues to work for a variety of clients and loves teaching.
Born in Germany and raised in New York City, Vesper Stamper has been an illustrator for over 20 years. She has a BFA in Illustration from Parsons and an MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay from School of Visual Arts. Her debut illustrated Young Adult novel, What the Night Sings, was a National Book Award Nominee, a Morris Award Finalist, Golden Kite Honor Book and Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner. She lives with her husband, filmmaker Ben Stamper, and her two children, in the Northeast.
Shawna graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Brigham Young University in 2004 and has enjoyed a career as a freelance illustrator ever since. She’s created artwork for over 20 books, as well as art for board games and children's magazines. Shawna's true passion is in writing and illustrating her own stories. Brunhilda's Backwards Day is the first book she created as both author and illustrator. She lives in Utah with her two very artistic little girls and and her sweet and supportive graphic designer husband. She enjoys old movies, British shows, hiking, going on adventures with her family and playing with puppets.
Piper Thibodeau is a freelance character designer based in Montreal, Canada. She has done work for Nickelodean, Dreamworks, Intel, Penguin Books and more. But she is best known for her puntastic daily paintings, which she has been doing since 2012. The best of her paintings are collected in a book of her work, “Daily Paintings: The Art Of Piper Thibodeau.”
Chelsea Trousdale is a Designer and Illustrator currently based Salt Lake City Utah. For the past 8 years she has worked professionally as a Senior Graphic Designer in the corporate world while at the same time honing her craft as a Character Designer and Illustrator.
Jaime's work can be found on everything from books, to wallpaper, to ad campaigns. Her clients include Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins and Scholastic. Her art has been recognized by the likes of American Illustration, Communication Arts, The Society of Illustrators and SCBWI. She has taught in both the undergraduate and grad illustration programs at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She got her start in the second grade, drawing unicorns for nickels.
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