Summary of Experiences – CV
Summary
From art school at the University of Texas, to Yahoo!, to teaching art to children in Santa Fe to being a storyboard artist for children, an entrepreneur, and a father I’ve developed skills that will be relevant in the coming months and years as an author/illustrator.
Yahoo! & Ask Earl / 1996-2000
My second big break was when I went to work at Yahoo! Inc in Sunnyvale, California as an illustrator and UI professional. Please read more about this here, but to summarize, I worked on Yahooligans, Yahoo! Games, and Yahoo! E-Cards in their formative years. I worked with world-class talent, from the Smithsonian, to Peter Max, to KISS and Ben and Jerry, my graphics and content reached millions around the world each month. Ask Earl was (and is) a forum where children can write-in questions, and answers are then published out to the world. This is still the 4th link on the Yahoo Kids homepage, and is considered an important tool in online childrens education. It’s the kids version of Quora, circa 1997!
Storyboard and Concept Artist.
Read about those here.
Boys Art Director / Brush Ranch Camp — 1991, 1992, 1993
I started in 1990 when I was the Head of Boys Art Department at an art-oriented camp located in the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico. During my awesome three summer stint at this wonderful camp, I developed my loose and open-ended style of storytelling as we would gather around fires in the evenings, and had larger assemblies during the day. I would relay stories that I had heard at camp when I was a kid, and created, of course, created ones of my own. The best part about this storytelling experience was being able to really feel what the kids liked and didn’t like, and have the ability to change and manipulate the endings on the fly. I played a game where I would get the kids to shout out an ending that I would then flesh it out best I could. I do this with my own children to this day, and it’s a riot!
Gloria Walther, Kalani, and The Walther School / 2001
A lifetime friend of my family, Gloria Walther, asked if I would help her illustrate a children’s audio book that she had developed for kids and their parents. The story was popular with the children at the school she founded Los Angeles, The Walther School. We worked and worked, but the book version of the tale of Kalani has never been fully realized, although I’ve got many many drawings from those days. I chatted online with Gloria, recently, and she mentioned our project. Someday, Gloria! Regardless, I was exposed to a way of thinking about children that is so profound, it’s hard to put into words. Gloria is a great human and is probably the single most important person in Hollywood. She’s been on Oprah, and has recently published Eye to Eye, a remarkable book on a lifetime of experiences around children. Don’t even hesitate picking up that book.
BFA / College of Fine Art / University of Texas
Drawing/Painting, video, and the emerging ‘super highway’ aka ‘cyberspace’ aka ‘the world wide web’ aka ‘the tubes’ also known as: The Internet, circa 1993. At college, I had been VP of the Fine Arts Council and had been a Baccalaureate of Art at Richardson High School for two years, my junior and senior years. I’m a believer in school and learning, although I’m also a believer in getting out in the world and experiencing. Sometimes these line up in good and interesting ways. (Hence my fascination with children’s lit).
Before all of this, though, were my early years and some of my influences and inspirations.
Thanks for reading! Contact me with any questions, comments or suggestions.
Big Shoe Holiday
Love helping out the fans of Bear James. I was asked by the guys at Big Shoes to liven up their homepage with a holiday illustration. These guys are great, plus I love the idea of REALLY BIG SHOES… like something Paul Bunyan would wear (or Santa would fly in). I hope I get to do more illustrations like this in the future. -Bear
Today, I Rejoined SCBWI
Today I joined the SCBWI (Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) for the third time. The site has really progressed since the last time around. I saw a members area (here’s my member page, pretty bland for now), a resource section, regional info, and they seem to have at least a little bit of socialization going on.. you can collect SCBWI friends, if you happen to have any, which I don’t think I do yet. Ha.
I’m definitely going to get out to New York in January for the Winter Conference, where, apparently, I can ‘take the express to success.’ I’m thinking it’s going to be the Polar Express because New York + January = Cold.
My goal is to get in front of some interesting folks, possibly find an agent, meet some interesting folks which I always seem to do at these things. If you’re going to be there and want to meet up get ahold of me and let’s make it happen!
-Bear
Storyboards & Concept Art / Internet The City
Summary
One of my first jobs in California in 1996 was doing storyboards and concept art for a company on two projects: Internet the City, and The Milk Carton Campaign.
Details
I enjoyed my time doing storyboards. When I first moved to California in 1996, I went to work for a company that was creating an interactive world on the computer that was creating a visual representation of the Internet as a city. Guess what it was called? Internet the City! There were seven main buildings (Email, FTP, Usenet, Gopher, Telnet and IRC, and navigating the World Wide Web) and a robot tour guide named URL, who drove a taxi. Internet the City won a Joey Award for Best Interactive Educational CD-ROM of 2007.
The best part about this job was that I got to draw all day long, creating the scenes, environments, and some of the characters that populated the city. I even got to dress up in a suit and ‘live act’ the part of URL at what was a (then) high-tech animation studio in L.A. This was a big deal at the time! It was a very interesting project that for some reason never went very far.
Right in the middle of production of Internet the City, I started working on another interactive piece called The Milk Carton Campaign. We worked closely with the San Jose Police Department, specifically Frank Swaringen. We scouted schools and locations for source material and ideas. This particular project also never seemed to truly go anywhere, and by the year’s end, I had left my company for greener pastures over at Yahoo (read about my Yahoo! years here).
I’ll upload pictures as I find them.
References
Hobo Mary
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Yahooligans!
Summary
I went to work at Yahoo! in December 1996 after a stint doing storyboards and concept art. I worked on Yahooligans (aka Yahoo Kids), Ask Earl, Yahoo Games, an interactive history of the internet at the Smithsonian Institute, and the world’s first e-cards. My work was exposed to millions of people around the world.
Details
After moving out to California to do storyboarding and world creation, I went to work for Yahoo! as an illustrator and User Interface design lead. There I worked on several fun projects that related to kids: Yahooligans (aka Yahoo! Kids), Yahoo! Games, Yahoo E-Cards, and a real-world exhibit in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. (See Pictures). Most of this stuff looks pretty dated now, but the internet was still new back then, and many people were still on 14.4k and 28.8k modems, so the images had to be small and adhere to a strict 216 color web palate.
My second project ever was to create four Valentine’s Day related e-Cards, as a promotion for a flower company. Yahoo Ecards would eventually grow to be one of the best ways to connect to people online, spawning many companies. The work was done in close collaboration with several people during those days, so content, coding, and graphics were usually a three-person team. I’m very proud that my Yahooligans work reached millions of people each month and in every country. It was a thrilling time and the numbers are still staggering to this day.
One of my favorite character inventions at that time was Earl and Stray Kat which were clever names for URL and Random Category. It’s now called Ask Earl is a forum where kids could write-in questions online, and one of the members on staff (originally Gabe Weisart) would publish the answers out to the kids on a fairly regular basis. Today (Dec. 23rd, 2010) Ask Earl is still the 4th link on the Yahoo Kids homepage, and is considered an important tool in online children’s education.