The Shaw-Blanchard-Amberson lineup had been together since the band's beginning. Shaw began playing open mics while she was an undergrad at California College of the Arts. She was soon invited to play a house party and quickly found a backing band, which included Amberson.
Read the restPosted on Thursday, May 16, 2013 by Allison Byers
Jenny Parks is a scientific illustrator that also happens to be a shameless nerd, with a penchant for drawing animals, dinosaurs, imaginary creatures… and occasionally, people as cats. Somehow, she found herself with a bit of internet fame with the illustration ‘Doctor Mew’, and has been baffled ever since. With a BFA in illustration from the California College of the Arts, and a graduate degree in Science Illustration from UC Santa Cruz, she now resides in San Francisco as a freelance illustrator, fulfilling her destiny to make a living drawing cute, fuzzy things.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, December 19, 2012 by Allison Byers
For most students, graduation marks the end of their academic career. But for some California College of the Arts alumni, graduation was only the beginning. Many have become educators in their chosen field, and a select few serve in chair and director positions at educational institutions across the country and around the world.
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, December 18, 2012 by Lindsey Westbrook
Take Me to Your BBQ
Disney-Hyperion, 2012
Hardcover, 40 pages, $16.99
Aliens have landed on Willy’s farm, and they’re not leaving without a square dance and a square meal! So fire up that grill, lay on the barbeque sauce, and snatch up that fiddle. Told in verse, this rollicking story puts a twist on the typical encounter with the third kind. Adam McCauley’s (Illustration faculty) out-of-this-world illustrations match Kathy Duval's hoedown rhymes like ribs and taters! Get ready for some extraterrestrial, lip-smacking fun.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, December 5, 2012 by Lindsey Westbrook
Steve Purcell (Interdisciplinary Fine Arts 1982) is a cartoonist, animator, director, game designer, and Eisner Award recipient. He works at Pixar, and was a writer and codirector of the 2012 feature film Brave.
While at CCA he contributed comic strips to the college newspaper, Spectrum, and these were the first public appearances of his characters known as Sam & Max Freelance Police, a duo of anthropomorphic animal vigilantes and private investigators who have subsequently enjoyed great success in comic, TV show, and game formats.
One of Purcell's friends and fellow students at CCA was Mike Mignola (Illustration 1982), who went on to become the creator of Hellboy. They both studied under Vince Perez and Gary Ruddell. After graduation Purcell freelanced for Marvel Comics and spent some years at LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic before landing his current job at Pixar.
Purcell shared some insights about his career in the latest issue of CCA's Glance magazine:
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 by Chris Bliss
A friendly alligator on a quest to get clean, an imaginary universe of original creatures, and a depiction of the phenomenon called data scraping -- these are just a few of the concepts that CCA Illustration alumni have been challenged to bring to life.
With 167 students currently enrolled, the Illustration Program is one of the largest at CCA. Every year, students, alumni, and faculty are recognized and honored in national illustration competitions. The program consistently produces talented and accomplished artists who go on to build successful careers.
We recently interviewed four Illustration alums to see what paths they have taken since graduation and to ask them to reflect on their time at CCA.
Read the restPosted on Friday, October 26, 2012 by Allison Byers
Bob Ciano was art director of Opera News magazine for three and a half years in the late 1960s. Published for members of the Metropolitan Opera Guild in New York, the magazine cost just 35 cents, but its covers were worth a million bucks. Ciano was the conductor of an ensemble of superb illustrators, including Milton Glaser, whose artworks were preludes to choruses of articles inside. From San Francisco, Ciano told me a little bit about these gems.
Read the restPosted on Monday, October 22, 2012 by Allison Byers
Kevin Wada's fashion illustrations and caricatures have a wry wit and authority mixed with a slick gay sensibility.
In Kevin's own words:
I was born in the greater Los Angeles area, raised in the San Gabriel Valley and went to college at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I've been here in San Francisco for about five years and couldn't be happier.
Posted on Monday, October 1, 2012 by Allison Byers
"Drawing the Line," an exhibition of the work of the late Dugald Stermer, opens Monday at the CCA campus in San Francisco. In the late '90s, Alexis Mahrus, who as interim chair of the illustration department curated the exhibition with the illustrator and art director's family, was a student of Stermer's.
Read the restPosted on Monday, September 24, 2012 by Allison Byers
When Illustration chair and Distinguished Professor Dugald Stermer passed away in December 2011, the CCA community experienced a monumental loss. The life and work of Stermer, our “beloved cowboy” chair of the Illustration Program, will be celebrated October 1-12, with the memorial exhibition Drawing the Line.
Read the rest