Click on arrow below to listen to interview

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 6 or above) is required to play this audio clip. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

CRAIG ELLIOT has been interested in the artistic for as long as he can remember. Born in a farm and air force town in California, Craig’s family moved to what is now Silicon Valley California where he grew up. Back then, most of the valley was fruit orchards and open space.  The experience of walking home from school through a shower of blossoms or playing in the creek as a child fostered Craig’s love of nature. Dioramas with sculpted and painted figures often depicting the nature that surrounded him, along with drawing were Craig’s first art forms.

After attending Art Center College in Pasadena, California, he began illustrating for various clients and started working full time in the animation industry.  He has worked primarily for Disney and Dreamworks, designing their animated films such as Hercules, Mulan, The Emperor’s New Groove, Treasure Planet, Shark Tale, Flushed Away, Bee Movie, and Enchanted, as well as other upcoming features. Craig has also done fully painted comic book and cover artwork for Dark Horse Comics, and has done various Illustration work for many different companies. His work can currently be seen in the books “Treasure Planet a Voyage of Discovery” and “Spectrum 10, 11, 12, 13 & 15 the Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art”, Aphrodisia I and his 3 sketchbooks.

Craig has also been creating a body of personal work for many years.  Craig’s personal works are inspired by his own experiences and philosophies. Craig finds endless beauty in nature and tries to focus that beauty and feeling through his art so the viewer can’t help but have reverence for something so beautiful. There is often much more than just visual beauty in Craig’s paintings and drawings. Themes of body image, environmental preservation, and social and psychological repression are some of the main themes behind Craig’s work. Contrary to many artist’s approach, he tries to relay his message in a positive way by illustrating benefits and beauty of oneness with nature, seeing ones body as beautiful, or the true exhilaration and growth one experiences when free of psychological bindings.

This interview is conducted by Tee Bosustow from Toonin to the World of Animaiton.

Tags: Interviews