Jim Auckland is an illustrator primarily known as a sport and entertainment artist. His career spans over 30 years as a freelance illustrator and an instructor at the Otis College of Art and Design. Jim has been living in New Zealand for nearly 4 years, and currently co-owns and operates Takapuna Art Supplies with his partner Sandy Collins. The store also runs workshops and classes at an adjacent studio space, where Jim offers foundational and advanced painting courses.

“Early on, like most kids I fell in love with comic books. I also noticed that some were better drawn than others. I used to paint with my mom and my grandmother. They were both very talented and encouraged me. I became a great admirer of the Disney artists and when I was 9 years old, the Mickey Mouse Club became a mainstay of American television. Disney promote themselves very well and I really wanted to become a Disney artist and that was my goal when I went into Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where I received my B.F.A. in Illustration.

While attending Art Center, my eyes were opened up to many other areas in the field. Many of my instructors were Disney artists and encouraged me in that direction while on the other hand, other instructors inspired me to consider other avenues of illustration like editorial and advertising.”

Takapuna Art supplies

Jim and Sandy felt that Takapuna Art Supplies would be a good business to purchase in order to meet other artists who share what they love. “It has been a lot more challenging than we initially thought. There are at least seven art supply stores in the Auckland Area and all of them have Brand Agencies, so we have to sell twice the product to compete. We also asked ourselves, ‘What do we have that they don’t have?’ and that’s where our focus has been. Sandy and I have BFA degrees in illustration and I have nearly two decades of teaching experience. I found that I was getting young artists coming into the shop to ask me to look over contracts or, university students and post-graduates coming in and asking me to look over their portfolios.

We immediately created a studio space in the shop where we could both work when there were slow patches. We suddenly started to sell the products we were working with, like lots of Super Sculpey and illustration board. So, we figured selling art supplies to support us while making a change from traditional assignment illustration to something more, would be ideal.

We were also getting a lot of requests for classes. Last year we decided to take on a large studio space next door to our shop and we are now holding workshops and I’m teaching a class 2 days a week. Our Saturday workshops have attracted a lot of attention. They are just casual untutored get-togethers where artists can draw and paint inspired by a costumed model.

We have also opened an online store with a gallery, and we produce a newsletter each month and talk about the business of art as well as techniques. It’s been fun.”

An illustrious career

“My illustration career started when I decided to go to the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where I was influenced by some amazing instructors like, Reynold Brown, Don Weller, Joseph Henniger, Lorser Feitelson, Harry Carmean, and Glen Vilppu. They are incredibly talented artists who totally changed my outlook on drawing and painting and I feel so lucky to be influenced by them. Everything I teach today, originates from them. I also sat beside other students like Craig Nelson, William Maughan and Walter Rane who always raised the bar on assignments. The competition at Art Centre was intense and all good illustrators feed off competition. Even today, when I paint, I’m really painting for other artists as well as myself.

After Art Center I freelanced briefly in the Los Angeles area and was shortly discovered and hired by Jack O’Grady Graphics in Chicago where I worked for 2 years. It was like a post-graduate course in illustration. I worked next to some of America’s best illustrators and designers who also influenced my style.
After moving back to Los Angeles I worked as an in-house illustrator for a number of aerospace companies, but always did a bit of freelance on the side. When I finally broke away and became solely freelance, I received a number of interesting assignments in the entertainment industry, like movie posters for Dennis the Menace, A League of Their Own, The Untouchables, and A Secret Garden, but my favorite assignments always came from Rhythm & Hues, a Los Angeles based special effects company. Dan Quarnstrom the head of creative there and a classmate at Art Center, made me their animal anatomy go-to guy.

After I had been working in the industry for almost twenty years, a friend and fellow studio mate, Jim Heimann recommended me to Otis College of Art & Design and that started my 17+ years with Otis as an instructor. I started part time and wound up in the last few years becoming a full time professor in drawing and painting. I’m very proud of my experience at Otis where some have said I created the Illustration Department. All I can say is that I’ve had a hand in the careers of some notable young illustrators like John Mueller, Bob Coronato, Bob Dob, Mia Araujo and Mike Lee. I’m really proud of them and the many others who have made a career of it. I also worked with some really talented faculty members including Nathan Ota, J.T. Steiny, Cecil Kim, Jenn Eggers and Gary Geraths to name a few.”

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Early years

“I drew ever since I can remember. My parents say that when I was a kid they would leave me home alone with some pencils and loads of paper and when they’d come back I’d still be drawing. They must have saved some good cash on babysitters, I suppose. I doubt CIFS would allow such behaviour from NZ parents though haha. (I am Russian by the way and have spent my childhood years there and no, my parents were very good and loving parents.)” Anton’s parents encouraged him once it became obvious that he had a talent for drawing. “My mother is an art teacher so I was lucky to have a mentor by my side from an early age. She would set tasks for me every day in my early teens. That included sketches of people I’d see on the street, still-lives, etc. the usual grind. But it paid off in the end.”

Anton remembers one of the more notable experiences in his early art classes: “When I was about 14, the art teacher at my new school (I must have changed a hundred schools when I was a kid) really didn’t like me for the first couple of months. Most of the projects she set for us were very arts and craftsy. I remember I did a cut out star which wasn’t quite symmetrical, and I think that’s when she officially decided that I am her worst student. Couple of weeks or days later I went out and I did sketches of a statue in our town, it was a drawing project she set out for us. When she saw my drawing she said it was as if a 25 year old drew it, whatever that means! She was a little strange. But anyway, I was in her good books after that.”

Anton’s high school years were spent in South Africa, where he attended the National School of the Arts. “I specialized in drawing, sculpture, painting and design for a few years there. Then when we came to New Zealand I enrolled into Elam at Auckland Uni which I graduated from in 2000. Now I work at an illustration company called Watermark with plenty of talented illustrators who I learn from all the time. So, still learning.” Anton does not have a set art practice routine nowadays, but his job inherently keeps his art skills sharp. “I do work a lot, 10 hours a day and more (boring guy yea? haha), so as soon as I get free time I just want to get out of the office and go do some sports or visit my friends. I try to swim every day, so that helps.” His advice to young aspiring artists is to “just paint and paint and you’ll get better and better. Copy your favorite artists work because it will help you get into the mind of the artists that painted them. Copy for learning purposes obviously, I don’t mean to encourage plagiarism here! Experiment with new techniques, etc.”

Career
“When I was in my last year at Elam I went out and showed my portfolio to a number of publishing companies in Auckland. One company in particular – Macmillan publishers – was just starting up then and they were looking to establish some connections with local illustrators, so timing for me was pretty lucky there. I got so much work from them that I decided to ask my tutors if I could integrate that paid work into my end of year projects. So I killed two birds with one stone sort of speaking, got plenty of material for my end of year show and also got paid for it. I worked for Macmillan for another couple of years after that as well as other publishing companies in Auckland. During that time I did The Book Of Pacific Lullabies which won the Russell Clark Award in 2001. It was great because I could use that backing to get more high profile work. With it I approached a company I work with now – Watermark. I was surprised to discover that they have an agent in America – Deborah Wolfe, who I have heard of before and was preparing to approach but wasn’t sure how. So the Book of pacific Lullabies helped me to get into Watermark and get Deborah Wolfe to represent me in the US.”

Anton describes Watermark as a wonderful, inspiring place to work, and compares it to solitary freelancing – “I always liked the idea of working on my own, I think that illustrators are solitary beings by nature. But after working with Watermark that has changed, I’ve learned to love the studio environment. It’s a lot more dynamic, we all share our ideas and our clients, all learn from each other, all help each other out when we are stuck. It creates a wonderful environment for us all to grow as illustrators, as a community. It presents more opportunities to work on fun projects or to meet new people, etc. Also you treat your job much more seriously then if you are working from home. It sets clear boundaries between home and work, otherwise it’s too easy to blur those when you are working from home, too easy to slack off.”

Working with Watermark takes a lot of stress out of promoting himself as a freelance illustrator. “They have already established a great client base here as well as overseas and they organize ways to promote us. We still go out to deliver our (Watermark) portfolio and talk to our clients face to face and invite them to our functions etc. Before I joined Watermark I had to do it all myself, print the portfolio, make it look presentable, make a bunch of appointments with publishing companies , go see them and keep my fingers crossed hoping for work, which does come to you if you see enough companies enough times. It’s always good to keep calling them after that from time to time though, just to remind them that you are there, otherwise they tend to forget about you.”

If you decide to go out on your own as a freelance illustrator, Anton has the following advice: “Be more persistent. Distribute your portfolios, send them little reminders or call them to see if they have any work for you and how they are doing. You definitely have to have a website too, no question about that, these days everyone expects you to have one. Also try to be as open to new projects as you can, and have a range of styles in your portfolio. I know some will tell that you need to stick to one and paint more and more of that. I agree with that to a degree. I am a believer in the fact that if there is talent in you it will only come out if you will be yourself, draw your own thing and stick with that. The only problem with that is that you might need to go on the dole if you decide to follow that path in NZ. Learning new things and working in slightly different styles will only broaden your horizons and give you an extra knowledge which you can apply to your own unique style if that’s what you want to achieve.”

Anton finds his work extremely rewarding, and takes great delight in seeing a finished job in its final context. “I remember I worked on a Vodafone campaign once. I did a series of artworks which were based around well known fairytales. These artworks would appear in airports, the slogan on each was ‘You are Never Far From Home‘ and featured the main character talking on a mobile phone. I remember coming back from Australia once I met some Brazilian tourists on the plane. When we got off in Auckland airport I remember looking at all the trolleys which had my art on them and saying, I did that. Then looking at the billboards and metrolites inside the airport, saying I did that. Then there was a huge one, a 30 meter billboard outside the airport , I have never seen my art being blown up that big before! It was Gulliver’s travels, it had a bunch of lilliputs tying Gulliver down. The tourists knew I drew that one too. They must have thought I was NZ’s only artist, you know how first impressions are. But anyway, it really felt like I came back home when I saw all that art around me. Another time was when we stopped at a little dairy on our snowboarding trip to Mt Ruapehu. There were only two two types of Bread on the shelf there and I did the illustrations for both of them! It’s a good feeling, there was a little bit of me, far away from home.”

Looking forward, Anton would like to be able to get to a point where he can exhibit his own work and be able to sustain a living by doing that. “But at the moment I am pretty happy doing whatever illustration comes my way. The projects I get are diverse enough to keep it all exciting. I wish kid’s books would have bigger budgets though, I would love to work on that sort of stuff.” Anton has tackled a multitude of subjects during his illustration career, and doesn’t have any set preferences as to what his favourite subject matter is. “I like to draw it all. Although I always have this desire to be able to portray the scenes from my dreams onto paper, I like the surreal and the weird in art. However I remember I got a job once where I had to do instructional illustration on how to use this new toothbrush they’ve created. It was so boring and so frustrating because the client kept coming back with all these changes, I still cringe when I think about it. I’ve decided after that project that I don’t like doing instructional illustration at all, haha.”

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