#10. A Conversation with Kelsey Brookes

JA: So let's start with where I first discovered your work, through the band Grand Ole Party; how is it that you ended up doing artwork for them?


KB: Grand Ole Party ended up playing at one of our house parties a while back, actually. They had just moved down here to San Diego from the Bay area, so no one knew who they were at that time. We had a few other bands play that night as well, but right when Grand Ole Party started playing, the whole party changed and everyone stopped and listened. I was hooked immediately, and gave them one of my zines as they left the party and said that if they ever needed any art work to just give me a shout, and they did.

JA: Your biography states that you were working as a scientist, tracking viruses for the U.S. government, before becoming a painter; what influenced such a drastic career change?

KB: Science was security and certainty, art was uncertainty and fun. At some point, right around my twenty-seventh birthday, I decided to follow fun as my guiding principal in life, and I had the most fun while I was painting. It took a bit of realigning my goals, but it was well worth it.

JA: You've stated your influences range from Hindu and Buddhist deities, exotic animals, sex, and rustic American quilts; how did you arrive at your style, and are there any artists that serve as a key influence to your work?

KB: Lots and lots of experimentation. The evolution of my work, and I would guess lots of other artist's work, is analogous to natural selection. Replace mutation with new ideas, and selection pressures, like disease and mate selection with my own decision making process, and you have an imperfect analogy to natural selection. Some ideas survive into future paintings, and some are killed off and become extinct. It is a continuous evolution.

JA: Your work has been featured in a variety of shows across the world, from the States to England, France, Australia, Switzerland, and much more; did you have a desire growing up to become involved in the art field, and what is it like to be so widely recognized for your work?

KB: Art had previously never really occupied a place in my consciousness growing up. It is a very fresh and fertile area for me, which might be one reason I can spend so much time making art.

JA: Do you have a painting that stands out as your favorite piece of work?

KB: The paintings I have in my head are always my favorite.

JA: What projects have you been working on most recently?

KB: I’m working on my first U.S. solo show for New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles, coming up this November at the moment and making some new prints for Pictures On Walls.

JA: What advice would you give to aspiring artists trying to get their work noticed?

KB: Do everything that comes your way until something sticks.

JA: If you could sum up your work with one word, what would it be?

KB: IntensityExpansionlExperimentationPsychedelicSexual

#9. A Conversation with Pete Emslie

JA: You spent six years illustrating a column in The Ottawa Citizen called Brown's Beat, which eventually led you to meeting artists working at Walt Disney World in Florida; tell me about the process and experiences you had becoming an artist for Disney.

PE: It started out very informally. My family and I used to take vacations at Walt Disney World back when I was still in my early teens. I believe I was about 17 when a friend of mine who was working at WDW offered to introduce me to the fellows in Disney's art department. Two of the character artists I met were to have a major influence on my later career with Disney. Russell Schroeder was very generous in looking over my art samples of Disney characters, offering critiques and supplying me with photocopied model sheets in order to improve my abilities. I would continue to drop in with new samples in subsequent trips to Florida thereafter for several years. Harry Gladstone was impressed with my talent too, and later when he transferred up to New York to take over as art director for Disney Merchandising, he gave me a call asking if I'd like to work for him. I was now about 22 and very much hoping to work for Disney, but I had reservations about living in New York City, as I was not a "big city" type. Being born and raised in Ottawa, the capitol of Canada, yet still a small, laid back city, I was used to the comfort of suburban life.

Anyway, I went to work for Harry as a freelancer for several weeks that summer. I went back again for several weeks the following winter, but by then I'd decided that New York was not somewhere I'd want to live, and so reluctantly I told Harry that, as much as I would love to work for Disney, the thought of being in NYC didn't sit well with me. Harry was sorry to hear that but understood my feelings. He did tell me, however, that he really thought I should be working for Disney, so he put me in touch with Jim Rayburn, who ran the Disney Merchandising office in Toronto. I got in touch with Jim and made an appointment to travel to Toronto and show him my portfolio. After about six months of freelancing from Ottawa, Jim offered me a staff position as a character artist, where I ended up working for about 6 years. It was in that 6th year that an opportunity arose to go work at WDW in Florida, in the department that had been my introduction to Disney.

JA: Working for the Disney Art Department from 1990 to 1994, what were some of the projects you were assigned to?

PE: The type of projects we had fell into several main categories: 1) Art that would appear on collateral material in the theme parks, resorts, and restaurants. 2) Art used in print advertising for WDW that would appear in various magazines. 3) Art used in Character Merchandise to be sold in the parks.

I loved doing art specifically for parks, as I could then buy up samples to give to friends and family as gifts. Some of the best projects, however, were for the park restaurants. Often we'd get to illustrate childrens' menus, themed to a specific Disney film. I enjoyed working on menus themed to The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and The Rescuers, as these were characters that we didn't often get to work with since we most often illustrated Mickey and the gang, or iconic characters like Snow White and Winnie-the-Pooh. I also enjoyed illustrating the phone book covers for the in-house directories at WDW.

JA: This position eventually led to you being offered a job by Disney Publishing in California to illustrate children's books, of which you have illustrated around 40 books so far; which books have stood out as being your favorite, and are you working on any now?

PE: My first book was Donald Duck's Christmas Tree for Golden Books, though it was arranged through my friend Russell Schroeder, who was at that time working as art director for Disney Publishing. I've done a few titles directly for Disney Publishing, but the majority of books have come through outside publishers with the Disney license, most notably Random House and Golden Books, who incidentally have merged in recent years to become one company. I've particularly enjoyed working on books that deal with the classic Disney films of the Walt era. My favourite projects have included three original stories featuring Dumbo for Golden, as well as an adaptation of my favourite film, The Jungle Book for Random House.

JA: Do you remember what first drew your attention to the art world to consider it as a career?

PE: Certainly the Disney animated features of my youth were a huge influence, as well as the theatrical cartoons that were a staple on afternoon kids' television back in the 1960s. But I also loved the print cartoons, especially the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly. In my early teen years I bought MAD magazine each month and was a big fan of guys like Mort Drucker, Paul Coker Jr., and the great Jack Davis. The caricatures of Al Hirschfeld have certainly been a lifelong influence too. Interestingly, it was the print cartoon world that lured me more than animation, as I tend to be a bit of a maverick, preferring to handle a job from start to finish by myself. Animation, by its very nature, requires a team effort, which really has never much appealed to me.

JA: What were your favorite animated shorts and features growing up, and how do they compare to what you enjoy today?


PE: Keeping in mind that the 1960s films of my youth were limited to periodic theatrical reissues, seeing a Disney animated feature was a real exciting event. I'd seen several of the Disney classics in reissue as a kid, but it was the theatrical debut of The Jungle Book in 1967 that I also credit as the catalyst for my wanting to become a professional cartoonist. It remains my favourite film to this day. Back in those years before the VCR came along, Disney shorts were not that accessible, being limited to the occasional one accompanying a feature, or once in awhile showing up on the Disney Sunday night show linked together with new animation of the wonderful Ludwig Von Drake. Therefore, I grew up seeing more Looney Tunes and Popeye regularly on TV. I remember being a huge fan of Popeye back then, but of the Disney characters, Donald Duck takes the spot as my all-time favourite, as I find him to be the most "human" of the Disney bunch, with all of his character flaws.

I'm not nearly so keen on the features being produced today, although I do admire The Little Mermaid very much, as I consider Ariel to be one of the most interesting of the Disney girls, again due to the humanity I see in her flawed and flighty nature, as well as a face designed for more exaggerated expression than many of the other girls. My favourite Disney feature of more recent times, though, is The Great Mouse Detective from 1986. Basil is one of the most quirky heroes I can recall, and it is one of the few Disney features where I consider the hero to be every bit as interesting as the villain. Of course, I'm also a big Sherlock Holmes fan, so that helps explain the appeal of this film too.

JA: What are your thoughts on today's animation studios and the work they are turning out?

PE: Well, I loved Brad Bird's The Iron Giant from a few years back. But, to be perfectly blunt, I am not enamored with CG animation, and many of today's releases in that medium, including Disney's, leave me cold. Computer animation has, in my opinion, blurred the line between animation and live-action and I resent that trend greatly. My interest in animation from the beginning was all about the magic of a cartoon drawing seemingly springing to life on screen. That aside, however, I do believe there have been some very well designed films in CG that are trying to incorporate some elements of traditional drawn animation. Pixar's The Incredibles benefits from a certain amount of traditional animation sensibility in the character design. Likewise, I would praise their Ratatouille, as well as Sony's Open Season as having a similar good design sense. Still, I would love to see Disney return to its roots and start back producing the type of traditionally animated cartoon features that they'd built their name upon.

JA: Since you are primarily an Illustrator, what books did you draw inspiration from? I am assuming that perhaps Golden Books may have been an influence?

PE: The early illustrated Golden Books have probably become more of an influence since I've started illustrating books myself, though my interest in them before that had been more casual. I really like the gouache painting techniques of guys like Mel Crawford and Al Dempster, who illustrated the Hanna-Barbera and Disney titles respectively. More recently I've been exploring the work of Robert McGinnis, who illustrated tons of crime novel paperbacks mostly in the 1960s, especially his covers for the Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald. He also works in gouache, which is my general medium too. I also love the painted work of Playboy cartoonist, Eldon Dedini, who worked mostly with watercolour and some acrylic, I believe.

JA: You've stated that you are looking to vary your artistic diet by pursuing non-Disney work, have you considered creating you very own line of children's books?

PE: I'd love to do that, but the market doesn't seem that favorable to what I do, at least not currently. Many illustrated childrens' books today strike me as mediocre in their "childlike" scrawled stylings and bland, humourless design. Polished cartoonists don't seem to be much in vogue with art directors, as far as I can see. I suspect that even the brilliant cartoonist, Dr. Suess, would have a hard time breaking into the market today. Still, market tastes can always change. I'd certainly love to hear from any publishers that do appreciate cartoons.

JA: Who are some of your favorite cartoonists working today?


PE: Well, Ronald Searle and Jack Davis by virtue of still being around, although their output has certainly decreased with age. I think Peter DeSeve, the cartoon illustrator who does a lot of covers for "The New Yorker", is great. Caricaturists like Robert Risko, John Kascht and Court Jones I admire very much. I'm not much impressed with contemporary comic strips, I'm afraid, as I don't think we've seen any more great ones since Bill Watterson retired Calvin and Hobbes a few years back. I think the best cartoonists today in North America are those doing editorial cartoons in newspapers and magazines. However, in Europe, cartoonists seem to be held in higher regard, and there's a wealth of great work still being created there in all sorts of venues.

JA: If you could sum up the personality of your work in one word, what would it be?

PE: Fun!

#8. A Conversation with Eddie Fitzgerald

JA: So Eddie, let's jump right into the fun stuff; you have been working in the animation industry for a long time now, do you remember the first cartoon that you were obsessed with as a child?

EF: My favorite cartoon show when I was a kid? That's easy. When I was a little kid I was obsessed with the black and white Disneyland show on television, my guess is that the show was especially targeted to little boys who were exactly my age. I'm guessing that because they seemed to go out of their way to put on the kind of stuff we liked: Donald and Goofy cartoons, Alice in Wonderland, Davy Crockett, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Man into Space, etc...you know, manly stuff. Years later, the show morphed into the Wonderful World of Color and and I felt betrayed. A typical Wonderful World episode would be about an Indian boy who nursed a hawk back to health or a kid in a wheelchair who won the special Olympics. I heard that Disney had this dumbed-down version forced on him by the network.

Memories of this black and white show continue to influence me, even now. Walt seemed to enjoy blowing peoples' minds, and thanks to him, so do I. He had a wide range of interests, and I picked that up from him too. My blog (Uncle Eddie's Theory Corner) is thematically all over the place, even though the main focus is on animation.

JA: Do you have an all-time favorite cartoon short; and if so, what is it that makes it your favorite?

EF: My all-time favorite cartoon? Haw! That would be The Great Piggy Bank Robbery by Bob Clampett. It changed my life! I'd just gotten my first animation job at Filmation in 1979. A friend there announced that he was going to show some Bob Clampett cartoons in the corridor that night, and I had no idea who Clampett was. My heroes were Chuck Jones, Avery, and classic Disney. With a haughty attitude, I figured I'd check out this upstart Clampett guy, just to see what the fuss was about. Well, the projector turned on, and by the time it turned off I was a palpitating mass of flesh on the floor. I had no idea that cartoons were capable of that sort of thing! Once again my life was changed forever, and it happened in a single night.

But I strayed from the point, which was The Great Piggy Bank Robbery. Beside the imagination and the sheer love of cartooning that you see in that film, it's completely visceral and musical in its structure. Whatever it is that's unique to the medium of film, cartooning, and funny animation is in that film in abundance. It's got charisma and magic. Those were words I never thought of applying to animation before I saw Bob's work, now I can't bear to see films that don't have them.

JA: How about current animation on television; what are your thoughts on today's shows, and is there anything on the air we should be tuning in for?

EF: Current television? We're lucky that we have John Kricfalusi, who's an amazing talent. Imagine what he could have done if he'd been around in the full animation era!

JA: What are your thoughts on current theatrical animation; has anything stood out to you recently as being worth seeing?

EF: Current theatrical animation? Hmm...well, 3-D isn't congenial to cartooning yet, and most computer artists aren't even trying to do funny acting. America was foolish to put so much emphasis on 3-D before the medium was ready. It'll be great down the line, but right now it's expensive and clunky. Expensive means no risk-taking. I'd like to work on a funny 3-D feature, but I'm not aware that anybody is even attempting it...I mean funny in the sense of going for out-loud laughs and funny, one-of-a-kind expressions, and acting...something where the comedy is central to the film, and not something that's squeezed in as an afterthought. My prediction is that the first studio that attempts this will kill at the box office.

#7. A Conversation with Jessica Rae Gordon

JA: So Jessica; after numerous awards, scholarships, publications, exhibits, and successful work in television animation, freelance illustration, and design- what was it that originally inspired you to become an artist?

JG: Well, I've always really wanted to be an artist. Specifically, I wanted to "work for Walt Disney" ever since I was in kindergarten. That's not exactly my dream anymore, I have new ones; but that one really drove me all through elementary school, junior, and senior high.

JA: Your sister, Kristy Gordon, has also gone on to a lot of success and acclaim as an artist. Was there much competition while growing up over who could create the best drawing or painting?

JG: Yes! Mom still tells us how we demanded that she choose which one did the better drawing, way back when we were kids. We would promise her that our feelings wouldn't be hurt no matter which she chose. It's pretty tough competing with Kristy though, so I avoid the competition now. Good thing our styles are now pretty hard to compare.

JA: Tell me about your two years spent at Algonquin College studying Television Animation.

JG: Well, I don't think animation really clicked with me. Now I'm afraid I've developed a block where animation is concerned. I'm currently in the early stages of developing an animated short with my friend and composer, Alexis Marsh, and I think I'm having stage fright. Algonquin College has some very talented animation teachers. It was a good experience for me, however, I generally felt that two years is really just too short of a time to properly learn animation.

JA: After receiving a diploma with honors, you went to work on two animated television series, one being The Ripping Friends; what was the other?

JG: The other was The Untalkative Bunny dreamt up by Graham Falk. I did in-betweening on the first season. I'm very proud being a part of this show, whenever I happen to mention I worked on this to someone that was a fan, they think I am very impressive. I pretty much count on this to get dates.

JA: What was it like working on Ripping Friends, and did you get to know John Kricfalusi during that time on the series?

JG: Well, I am pretty shy; it takes me quite a while to get to know people, but John K. is quite a personality! When I was working on the show it was directly through him, not Fun Bag. I would visit him from time to time at his hotel room, but it was really my sister who got to know him much more than me.

JA: You also worked on an animated commercial, tell me about that project.

JG: I worked at Tandem Films in London, England in 2002. During the year I lived in Cambridge and worked on and off whenever they needed me; I was really just in charge of compositing, but still! The commercials I worked on were Sterident, some kind of denture cleaner, and Expedia. I also worked on their in-house short, Little Things. Everyone there was very friendly and welcoming.

JA: You went on to attend Sheridan College, where you received your Bachelor's Degree with honors from Illustration; tell me about your experiences in that program, and what you feel might be the most important lesson you have learned that you would want aspiring artists to know.

JG: It was a very eye-opening experience to learn about the wide range in mediums and techniques of application that one can use! From an animation background, I was pretty reluctant to be messy, spontaneous, and use multimedia! I got over that during my training at Sheridan and my work is a bit more instinctual. I've always had a near inappropriate fetish when it comes to paper and stationary, but for some reason it just didn't occur to me to make collage art until the end of the third year.

JA: Your illustrations and designs are brilliant, boasting with humor and imagination; what is the ultimate goal you have set for yourself as an artist?

JG: Well thank you! Presently, my ultimate goal is to illustrate a series of children's books in my own style. I'd also like to have a solo show at Magic Pony, a very cute gallery in Toronto, complete my animated short that I mentioned before with Alexis Marsh, and get more freelance magazine illustration work.

JA: What were some of your favorite animated shorts or features growing up?

JG: Well, let me see...I'm pretty sure I can recite every word of Disney's Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and The Lion King; but aside from Disney movies, I really loved The Last Unicorn, Get a Job, The Big Snit, and a lot of The National Film Board shorts.

JA: How would you define the personality of your work to me with one word?

JG: Detail.

#6. A Conversation with Kristy Gordon: Part II

JA: You recently posted background painting instructions that were created for other painters to follow your keys; obviously Mary Blair was a strong influence on your background work with Spumco, but what BGs from other features or shorts were either an influence or perhaps pieces you studied?

KG: Yeah, Mary Blair was my life! I even watched Disney's Johnny Appleseed during most of my lunch breaks; even though she only designed the original backgrounds, and I just loved it so much! There really was no other person, just everything! I was constantly surrounded by amazing art, and had Johnny's highly discerning eye there to point out all of the cool stuff. We had so many Golden Books, they were definitely the other main resource. Also Mel Crawford, magazines from the fifties, Sokol, Hanna Barbera, and even Samurai Jack! Yeah, I had a couple of print-outs of Samurai Jack BGs; like a really cool one where the rain was coming down all diagonally and the colours were pretty grey. It was done by Bill Wray! Tin Pan Alley Cats is one old animation which I remember specifically referencing for a walking sequence shot in Ren Seeks Help. I was also looking things up on Google Images and making reference pages; like the one I made for one of our BG painters living in Montreal, Simon Dupuis. It was for the pan up in the fridge in Altruists. I think the ham was from one of Johnny's old magazines, and the rest was stuff I found on the internet.
JA: What is it about these backgrounds that stand out as being unique, and in what ways do you feel they could have been improved?

KG: They just seemed so confident and stylized! Just like Johnny said they should be, each brushstroke seemed to be done with flair! They had good, often muted, colours; and interesting textures.

I guess one thing that I noticed is that not too many BG painters these days were using the softer techniques, like they would in older illustrations. I forget which Golden Books Johnny had me copy for training, but they were of soft and furry animals, and also trees painted with watercolours. When I started doing the BG paintings for the show, I tried to achieve some of those softer techniques.

JA: Let's talk about your palette; what changes did you begin to notice after being influenced by Juan Martinez to start using black for the first time?

KG: My palette became a lot more limited after working with Juan. I took off many of the greens and blues, sometimes even all of them. He used colours that I had never tried before; like English Red, Persian Red, and Yellow Ochre Pale. Using those colours as the basis of my flesh tones, instead of Burnt Sienna, really helped tone down my previously over-saturated colours. He also introduced me to the idea of using black in a painting, something I almost never did. It is amazing how when you mix black with some white, it creates a colour much like blue that works very nicely in cool flesh tones. You could even add a little Yellow Ochre to make it greenish.

JA: Your blues, greens, and Burnt Sienna were all removed from your palette while in his workshops; seeing as how they have returned, what do you feel was missing from your work in the absence of these colours?

KG: Well, I think that was a necessary change at the time to help get my colours under control, but now I'm wanting to achieve more transparent shadows and things. The red oxides, English Red and Persian Red, are really quite opaque, so now I've added Burnt Sienna back onto my palette. I'm mixing up Burnt Sienna with Ultramarine Blue for the shadows quite a bit, as well as things like Alizarin Permanent and Sap Green. All of these colours are pretty transparent, and compliment each other to tone them down, without it getting muddy or too opaque. I'll still mix some black in there sometimes too, though. I'll use colours like Cobalt Turquoise or Cerulean Blue too; because I like to get some nice, clean cools into my shadows. I definitely use the blues and greens differently, and more sparingly, than I would before.

JA: You've mentioned Jeremy Lipking's "magic" mixture of Ultramarine, Titanium white, and Alizarin Permanent, which mixes a light blue and slight purple; your phobia of purple relates to the "old man" syndrome of artists trying to bring life into their later work with it's overuse, and also eighties animation. Have you experimented with variations of the colour, or are you trying to avoid it at all costs?

KG: Yeah, Jeremy Lipking's "magic" mixture is really so great. It helps keep all of the colours related, because I find myself mixing a small amount into many of the colours in my paintings. I also saw Yuqi Wang using Egyptian Violet, which is pretty much the most purplest of purples, with beautiful results. I actually have that purple on my palette presently! Amazing as it is, given my purple phobia, I don't quite use it the way Yuqi does. It's only ever made an appearance in it's greyest form in my work so far, so who knows? Maybe as I get older.

JA: You worked with various cartoon studios before arriving at Spumco, such as Nelvana and Dynomight; what did you learn at these studios that you were able to apply in your later work? Also, tell me about Graham Falk.

KG: Not to learn how to draw from crappy studio shows. Too many people pick up terrible drawing techniques and habits from the most generic television shows, allowing it to inform their own personal style!
The Untalkative Bunny was a show that I worked on though, which was created by Graham Falk, who really does have such a cute and neat style. The problem was that nobody understood his style, and actually thought that the "flat" style of the Bunny was basically equivalent to "draw as shitty as you can!" This was before any of the "flat" style had caught on at all in Canada. But yeah, Graham's drawings are so awesome, and the Bunny is super funny! Everyone should go to his website and check out his drawings and comics.

JA: Explain the O-Grant that you recently applied for; and what can students reading this right now do to help?

KG: It’s for students who have made a difference in their communities in some way. My application is centered on the volunteer teaching and mentoring and stuff that I have been doing for other artists. Anyone in the whole world can register to leave feedback, and the amount of feedback is taken into consideration when they choose the winners! Also, Canadian students can even vote on my video!

#5. A Conversation with Nick Cross

JA: Let's go back to 1996, tell me about your first job working in animation with the Ottawa studio Dynomight Cartoons; how did that job come about, and what kind of work were you doing there?

NC: My college friend Troy Little had moved to Ottawa with his future wife, Carol, because she was going to attend a university here. I was living in Mississauga at the time, which is basically a suburb of Toronto. He managed to find work at Dynomight because they were looking for artists with an illustration background for a project they were about to start. They asked him if he knew any other people looking for work, and he called me up. I was working a dead-end job at the time and was pretty bummed out about my life, so when he called and asked if I wanted to work at an animation studio, I didn't even have to think twice. I moved to Ottawa a couple of weeks later and I've been here ever since. I often think about how lucky I was that Dynomight took such a chance hiring me, I doubt I ever would have been hired at an animation studio if it wasn't for that. Who knows what I would be doing now; I owe them a lot!

JA: What eventually led to your arrival at Spumco?

NC: In 2001, John Kricfalusi was doing a series called The Ripping Friends that was being produced at a couple of studios in Canada. About halfway through the production, John came to Ottawa to oversee that project because the studio was having a really hard time giving him what he wanted. Kristy Gordon and I showed him our portfolios and got hired on. I was doing inking of the character models, which I found really challenging. I learned a lot doing that! Shortly after Ripping Friends ended, John made a deal to make a bunch of new Ren & Stimpy episodes; so he opened a studio in Ottawa and offered me a job. Somehow I convinced him to let me do storyboards for it, and before I knew it, I was promoted to an Art Director position. In my case, this meant that I did a whole bunch of different jobs: storyboards, layouts, background designs, and paintings...I was pretty busy!

JA: You've said that you were inspired by cartoons from the thirties, notably the Fleischers and Ub Iwerks; with all of the tired animation going on in the industry at that time, how did it feel to be working in such a creative and challenging atmosphere under the direction of someone like John K.?

NC: Despite the fact that animation is one of the most creative art forms in the world, the industry is pretty limiting. It is overwhelmingly restrictive, so it was great to work for someone like John. Despite the fact that he is extremely demanding of his artists, he is also very open to them experimenting and bringing something of their own to the project. That's the thing that I really like about cartoons from the thirties; you can really see that the artists at the time were constantly experimenting and inventing new ideas. Even when the results are not the greatest, they are still interesting to watch.

JA: Let's focus on Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon for a moment; particularly on an episode that was never produced, Life Sucks. Was it your idea to draw The Children's Crusade in the style of Mary Blair's Golden Books?

NC: No. I wish I could take credit for that, but it was John's idea. I think he just said it in an offhanded kind of way while he was going over the story with me. I loved the idea, so I immersed myself with Mary Blair drawings and really worked hard to get a handle on her style.

JA: John said that many of the people who worked on that episode figured it would be the best Ren & Stimpy story ever written; why, in that case, was it never produced?

NC: It had the potential to be really amazing because of it's scope, which was also it's downfall. It just took too long to get finished, and we didn't have the time or money. It got pushed to the sidelines so that we could concentrate on getting other shows done, and the budget and schedule ran out before we got a chance to complete it. It's a shame, because that was my favorite episode too.

JA: You also worked with John K. on Classico, the Tenacious D video, and were in charge of background design and color styling; what was that experience like, and were there any challenges retaining all of the crude gags that were created?

NC: Well, I just did backgrounds on that, so the gags weren't really my department. It wasn't much different than normally doing BGs for John, which is an experience that can be a real struggle sometimes. But I didn't struggle alone, there were a few other artists who also did paintings for that video: Marlo Meekins, Rex Hackelberg, and Jay Li. Each of them brought some unique stuff to the final look of the cartoon.

JA: Let's talk about The Waif of Persephone, a project you worked on for five years; what was the initial response to your film at it's multiple screenings, and what are your thoughts on the finished project in comparison to your original vision?

NC: Overall, I'm happy with the way the film turned out. It's hard to gauge the reaction it has gotten from festivals, because I'm not really able to go to all of them. I do know that I got a really good reaction from it's screening at the Ottawa Animation Festival, since I was there. It also won an award for "Best Canadian Animation" at the Okanagan Film Festival, so that was pretty cool too.

JA: Tell me about your next film, Yellow Cake, and what progress you have left to make before it is complete.

NC: The film is my take on the current wave of reactionary politics at work in the world now. Only in the modern world could folks turn a simple and happy thing like cake into an ominous reason to kill thousands of people, so I'm doing a happy animated cartoon about it. Right now I'm just wrapping up animation, which just leaves the background painting, and then I'm done. Hopefully, it will all be finished by early 2009.

JA: What changes would you like to see made in the animation world right now, and what progress is being made that you feel reflects what you would like to see happen?

NC: I've been lucky to have worked for a lot of great directors over the past few years: Riccardo Durante, Mark Ackland, Sean Scott, and John Kricfalusi. I believe that when a director is really diligent they can fight the system just enough to make whatever it is they are doing turn out pretty good. I guess the main change that I would want to see is more trust being placed into the creative side of the production, and more room being given for experimentation.

JA: If you had to promote your style with one word, what would it be?

NC: I don't know, I don't really believe in style. So maybe it would be "astylistic"?

#4. A Conversation with Kristy Gordon

JA: Let's start this look at your work with one of your first professional positions, Art Director of Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon. How did this job come about, and what were your first interactions with series creator John Kricfalusi like?

KG: Well, it was the night of my graduation from animation at Algonquin College, and we had an open-house. During the night, I heard that John K. was there looking at portfolios! I was pretty excited, but didn't know exactly what he looked like. I even eagerly asked someone else from a different studio here in town who was looking at my portfolio if he was John K., and he was pretty confused. But alas, Johnny never made it to my portfolio and left kinda early. I was so disappointed! I heard through the grapevine that he was drinking at a local bar that night, so Nick Cross (also Art Director) and I drove to meet him! This time I got it right and introduced myself to the right guy. So there we were, drinking together, and he asked me to draw a character on a napkin! Horror! I was mostly a layout artist, and never felt totally comfortable drawing characters from animation. I had just finished this film in school, so I drew this totally pathetic drawing of my little girl character. Oh, thank the sweet lord that I don't still have that drawing today to post for everyone now. Oh yeah, for some reason I didn't even have my portfolio there with me that night! Fortunately, when I finally did get him a copy of the 'ol portfolio, he liked the layouts! Pretty soon he had me doing layouts and inking for The Ripping Friends. Later, when I heard that he was doing a new Ren & Stimpy series, I asked him if I could paint the backgrounds for it, to which he responded that I "would probably need a little more practice before doing that". He got me to do a "test", to just choose some Mary Blair paintings to copy and show to him. I did, and he said he pretty much couldn't tell any difference between mine and the originals, and I was hired. One thing led to another, and I started to get the hang of doing BGs for Spumco, although it was never easy! I was made BG Painting Supervisor, which I later found out actually means Art Director. I remember seeing the credits on Stimpy's Pregnant that said I was Art Director and thought it was some sort of weird, but highly flattering, mistake.

JA: You recently wrote that you developed a phobia of purple while at Spumco, due to John's agony of the cartoons from the eighties that used the same colours- pink, purple, and green- referring to them as "video-box colours". Tell me about the process you went through of finding the tone to match what John wanted.

KG: Oh, purple! You know it exactly; it's the purple, pink, and green that must be avoided in cartoons, and with that I agree. Yeah, the "process" I went through basically started with me first being told by Johnny to not use any primary colours, so I thought, "Great, now I get it. It's all about the secondary colours!". But no, I soon found out that they were all out too! I was pretty darn confused about things. I kept going through the colours in my mind, trying to think about which ones weren't primary or secondary. Isn't that all of them? I tried to remember, "isn't there a category called tertiary colours?" I finally discovered that pretty much all of the colours were acceptable, as long as they were generally pretty greyed down.

JA: How did you become involved in the voice work for the characters on Ren & Stimpy?

KG: That was really just because I knew Johnny. I hung out with him, worked with him, got drunk with him; I guess he heard my voice at some point and liked it. Doing voices is fun!

JA: John K. refers back to your work saying that you are "an incredible artist who is interested in many different aspects of art, a natural master of technique and detail. She just oozes with style and artistic elegance." Where did you draw inspiration from as a BG designer?

KG: Mary Blair was big, big, big! So were some really cool film noirs that Johnny brought in on laserdisc. He had the tech guy take the screen captures off for me. I had set my computer to a slide show of them when I was working on the Ren Seeks Help backgrounds for Mr. Horse's office. Johnny would also get us to go through magazines, like House & Home, and tear out any of the ones that had colours we liked and study why they worked. Then he would have us use the colours from the magazines, but done in the styles and techniques of Golden Books! Yeah, there were so many Golden Books, and he was always getting me to organize them. Sometimes he wouldn't even look at my BGs if the shelf wasn't organized. Rootie Kazootie was also big! A lot of Hanna Barbera for sure, too! He even had a couple binders made up of Hanna Barbera paintings, with instructions and analysis written up! I always wondered who put those together, and wanted to photocopy them, but never did.

JA: Let's go further back to what first inspired you to start creating art, what were your earliest influences?

KG: I actually started painting with acrylic on canvas when I was about fourteen. My mom was taking some painting classes and had learned how to stretch canvases, so I was stretching my own canvases too! She also had a lot of cool art books, like one by Group of Seven and Tom Thompson, a popular painting group here in Canada, and Alex Colville. I guess my mom likes a lot of Canadian artists! We also took out Art News magazines from the library in town, which I loved. I would try to do paintings of my own subjects, but in the styles and colours I saw in the magazines. Unfortunately, I lost that magazine, so my mom kinda had to pay the fine at the library for it. I later found it, and actually still have it today! I remember especially liking the German Expressionist painter, Ernst Kirschner.

JA: Your designs at Spumco were brilliant, not to mention very funny. John even commented on one of your BGs saying, "has anyone ever treated teats so reverently as our little genius Kristy has done for you?". How was the transition from working as Art Director at Spumco to teaching assistant for Yuqi Wang?

KG: Now, isn't that just so sweet of him? Yeah, it seems like Nick Cross was drawing such hilarious backgrounds, like that "cow pan", that I really didn't have to do anything to make them funny. I would just paint them kinda soft with FW inks.

While I was at Spumco, I was also painting landscapes for a couple of galleries here in Ottawa, and I had the sweet deal of them actually buying everything that I painted! That's pretty rare in the art world. Normally, paintings are put on consignment, and you really want that piece to sell, so I had a pretty sweet set-up. Eventually, I left Spumco to do my own paintings for galleries, and it went pretty well. One of my galleries asked if I do portraits, and I liked the idea. My mom always said that when you're applying for jobs and they ask if you can do something, say "yes", and learn later, which is what I did. I was also taking a portrait painting course at the Ottawa School of Art at that time. I received a few portrait commissions, and also started reading International Artist Magazine, where Juan Martinez had a six-part article on painting and drawing in the Academy way. He was teaching courses nearby in Toronto, so with my big landscape bucks I enrolled in one of his workshops!

Nick and I had all sorts of inspiring talks over glasses of wine about "imagine if I were a figure painter", and that was that. There was no turning back. I took more classes at the Academy of Realist Art in Toronto, and it was there that I heard about Yuqi Wang. I looked into it and discovered that he taught workshops at Andreeva in Santa Fe! Honestly, the rest is like a magical dream come true. I kinda mentioned to my mom that I would die if I didn't take that course. In an unexpected way, I actually found myself attending that two-week workshop on holiday with my mom and sister, Jessica (also an Illustrator- worked on The Ripping Friends ).

I fell in love with Santa Fe, and left there literally crying my head off in the airport. I was writing in my journal about how I was absolutely going to find a way to come back to take his nine month workshop later that year, which was way too expensive for me. I even saw an artist that I had met in Santa Fe at the airport while I was crying at a table alone. I stayed on top of things when I got home, and to my amazement I received an email from Jane Angelhart, a wonderful painter and the Director of Andreeva Academy at the time. She asked if I would like to be the TA for Yuqi's workshop, and also take it for free! I said yes right away, and didn't really tell anyone except Nick for months, not even my parents. My mom was pretty surprised when she eventually received a letter from Andreeva confirming my position. I didn't even know where I was going to stay! It is such a long and complicated story, but in the end I found myself in a Santa Fe hotel with Nick, one that he had sweetly rented for three days. That was the amount of time I had to find a place to live! I found the best place ever on the second night, and moved in the next day.

JA: As a recipient of numerous awards, including two Awards of Excellence from the Federation of Canadian Artists, Best of Show in the National Art Premier, as well as a Conference Scholarship from the Portrait Society of America; what goals do you have set for yourself as an artist, having already achieved so much at such a young age?

KG: Well, each time I accomplish one goal, I make new ones. Artistically, I just want to keep getting better. I'd like to work more narratives into my paintings and become looser with my brushwork. Actually, I've never painted a figure with a live model outdoors, so I want to do that soon!

Also, I often look to other artists that I admire to help me set specific goals for my career. I'm a big goal-setting person, I write them down and stuff. I guess I really want to get into New York, especially something like Arcadia or Forum Gallery, one day. A lot of goals like that. Other galleries that my favorite artists are in would be great too! I mean, at this point, to even think something like "being in world class museums one day would be nice" seems a little far-fetched, but that would be nice.

JA: If you had the ability to make the public more aware of one specific artist, who would it be, and why?

KG: Can't I choose two? I would have to say Jeremy Lipking, because he's my favorite living artist. There's never enough exposure for contemporary realist artists. Also, Yuqi Wang. He's another of my favorite living artists, and I find that he's really not that well known. He's a Chinese painter who now lives in Brooklyn, and yeah, he's just ridiculously good!

JA: If you could use only one word to define your work, what would it be?

KG: Painting?