Emily King is a fantastic painter, illustrator, and cut paper artist. She, “has a unique way of scaling things down to their most simple beautiful form and at the same time conveying an emotion in an incredibly descriptive way.” She received a BFA from the University of Utah and currently lives in Utah with her husband and three children.

When you have an image in mind, what governs whether you work in oils, illustration, or paper cutouts? Usually when I am working conceptually with an image in mind I do the piece almost always in cut paper, sketched out first. I am always drawing either in my sketchbook, just for practice or at the beginning of anything I do in paper. It’s hard for me right now to get a lot of painting time in. So many of my projects lately have been with paper that I really have to schedule time to paint even though I love painting as well. I do hope to paint more as my kids get older but I don’t think I’ll ever leave paper.

You like ‘scaling things down to their most simple beautiful form’. Yes, I think when working in paper I realized that I actually really love how limiting it can be. In the beginning it forces me to only work in flat shapes and color. I can abstract and manipulate the world I am creating within each piece and still convey a strong figurative concept I intend the viewer to pick up on. It’s not so literal which I think can sometimes make the message linger more.

You and I both love Minerva Teichert. She famously was not appreciated in her own time. How can we appreciate and support the arts more as a Church. Minerva was so amazing, she kept creating even when she couldn’t sell anything and left this incredible visual legacy of our faith. Her story and work is really inspiring. Now I think it’s easy, just buy everything artists make! Ha, ha, all kidding aside it’s tricky, on the one hand I feel like we have had almost a renaissance within the church of talented artists finding their voice. Not only in visual art but in music and literature as well. So there is a lot of competition with so many great artists but also it seems that everyone is really connected within the community and supporting each other. I think Provo has done a really great job supporting the arts and expanding opportunity. As a result, I think the artists have really reached out to the community together and increased the interest in the arts. This seems to have created a really healthy support system that understands the value in keeping all these artists working and creating. I wish this kind of environment was stronger in other communities. It is important to remember the emerging artists within the church who are just getting their footing and to provide them the support and context to be successful, this benefits everybody. People probably don’t realize how difficult it is to be an artist, there is a lot of ground work and rejection that usually happens and it’s a very vulnerable and trying profession. Creative potential and art is lost without sustainability. Financial support and relational networks enable artists to more fully realize their creative potential.

Your mother was an artist. You are an artist. How are you cultivating art with your own children? This is a big one for me because more than anything I want my children to be able to think and act creatively. In whatever career they choose or path they take I think this is essential for their success, fulfillment and well-being. I worry that our current education system has gotten too focused on tests and scores and that it has actually become counter-intuitive to instilling or even developing the creativity each child has. I started a small voluntary based art program at my children’s elementary school and it is in its 5th year. It isn’t much, but it’s something. I have also become more involved by serving with some other creative professionals on a committee of the State of Utah to try and put the arts back into the education system. This opportunity has helped me realize that there are a lot of amazing people working really hard for our kids and they need support and help. We still have a long road ahead of us to get art back in each school. I also try to give my kids as much free play as possible with no lessons or structure, just literally send them outside and let them create their own worlds, ask questions, solve their own fights and make things. I think this is the single biggest thing we can do to keep our kids creatively thinking, let them decide how they want to create and play.

What are you working on next? I just finished illustrating my first book, which was exciting, and exhausting, the book comes out this fall. I have just started a few private commissions and one commission for BYU. I’m also creating a couple of things to submit for future shows. I am hoping this year to find more experimental studio time to try new things and see if I can build upon what I already do in paper.

Visit Emily King’s website.

Follow Emily King on Instagram.

Dave Malan is an artist and illustrator who has worked with national and international clients including The Walt Disney Company, the United States Mint, and The Weekly Standard. He “employs a frank and accurate approach to portray the emotions of the subject, and uses straight forward portraiture with highly polished painting.” Malan lives with his wife and three children in Utah.

Describe yourself as an artist. I think an artist is how I define myself, maybe because I’ve always been defined that way by others. I’ve put most of my energy into developing this talent. I always dwell on what talent is, there must be some combination of attributes that make art work for me but I feel like the driver has been a lifelong inclination toward making art that has led to who can say how many hours of developing it. I’ve always tended toward realism and stylization of realism. My not fully conscious focus is depicting the individual, really working to depicting that real person behind the face. My drawing is the most developed part of my work and gets the most response because of the time that I’ve put into sketchbooks. I’m really working to get my illustration up to that level where it rolls over into something very natural. I also hope to develop my fine art paintings and probably ultimately be a fine artist.

You’ve worked for a long time as an artist with the Disney Interactive Studios. Explain what your division does and your role as an artist. I recently left after about 11 years at Disney Interactive. It was a fun job were I learned a lot and had the security to develop my illustration and art on the side out of the student quality work to something more mature and polished. Circumstances happened that I moved around most of my time there and got a period in most of the art disciplines in the company. I spent time in object modeling, concept, character modeling and my last few years were in the FX department. This might be a little surprising as it seems a little removed from the illustration work but it was fun challenge to come up with solutions to complex problems with the limitations demanded by memory space and other aspects of video game making. And a good understanding of the art principles can really take an effect to a different level.

Visit Dave Malan’s website.

Follow Dave Malan on Instagram.

Nathan Cunliffe is a freelance editorial and children’s illustrator living in Jeju Island, South Korea. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a BFA in Illustration.

Tell us about where you grew up and how you became an artist. So I grew up in Los Angeles, CA and my entire life I had planned on being either a paleontologist or a marine biologist. I was a very very young reader and would devour children’s books and young adult books; over time I fell in love with literature and so my aim is to be a children’s illustrator. I took my first art class when I was a junior in high school and it had never occurred to me that I might enjoy art. Thank goodness I did because my senior year I signed up for every art class available and headed off to Brigham Young University to study art. BYU was certainly a learning process for me because I wasn’t very successful in the beginning. I started in studio arts and was looking towards animation but ended up studying concept design and illustration. A beautiful hybrid major with a foot in both animation and illustration.

You graduated recently. After graduation I actually moved to South Korea, which is where I currently am! I am a teacher here and have been here since August 2014. I will be wrapping up my time in Korea by stopping in both China and Japan before heading back to Los Angeles, CA. I’ve always wanted to live abroad and really experience a different culture and become a part of it. I have certainly been able to experience a bit of Asian culture while living on Jeju Island, South Korea.

What tools–both traditional and digital–do you use regularly? While traveling I’ve had the incredible chance to observe and draw different things as I go. My favorite form of art making is sketch booking which can be tricky when trying to become a working artist; I have to make a very dedicated effort to make work that doesn’t just stay with me and actually goes out into the world.

In both illustration and animation Photoshop is a key element but I still prefer a touch of the traditional mediums so my favorite tools at the moment are watercolors, inks, pastel pencils, and color pencils. I’ll usually start with an red or blue sketch and then work on my contrasts and color before using Photoshop to tweak or touch up the final product.

What are you working on next? Currently I am mostly sketching and working on a side project or two but my next big project that I am really looking forward to working on is a redesign of some classic American games but with an Asian twist to them. I try to work on a variety of projects and really explore my options with mediums and such. I have also started to work on a couple of children’s books which I hope will be ready to publish by summer next year. Lots of projects in the early stages but looking forward to seeing where they take me over the next coming years!

Visit Nathan Cunliffe’s website.

Follow Nathan Cunliffe on Instagram.

Christopher Thornock is a freelance illustrator and active gallery artist from Utah. He received a BFA from Art Center College of Design and an MFA from Brigham Young University. He also teaches art as an adjunct professor.

Tell us a little about your career as an artist. When I graduated in 1996 from Art Center I started working freelance in just about any gig I could. I did exhibit design, tv storyboards, ad comping, adjunct teaching and illustration. I even worked for a short while as an in-house graphic designer before taking the leap and focusing on a studio career. Most of my experience between then and attending grad school was selling paintings as a gallery painter. I focused on traditional figure and landscape oil painting. After receiving my MFA I returned to the gallery work and taught.

You studied at the Art Center College of Design and then BYU. Contrast the two experiences. I started my higher ed at BYU back in the 80’s as an illustration major. After my junior year I transferred to Art Center where I received my BFA in Fine Art with a minor in illustration. I came back to BYU and graduated in 2007 with my MFA. They are very different experiences. Art Center is a more focused ‘art and design’ school and doesn’t really give you a rounded liberal art education. I rarely recycled faculty and most were working professionals. Going to school in the Los Angeles area offered great opportunities for expanding experiences. The greatest motivator there were the other students. Imagine taking all the most driven art minded kids and putting them together. Competition was fierce. Everyone had immense talent and it made me want to push hard with my work. There is a price to pay for this kind of experience. Art Center was, at the time, 5X the cost per semester. Now it costs much much more.

BYU has an excellent undergraduate program. When I was in illustration, I always felt like they really were trying to help us succeed. There is a strong focus on drawing and a lot of effort was made into bringing outside talent to Provo to inspire. The faculty demanded good work and helped you if you wanted to succeed. As far as my BYU graduate experience. I enjoyed working with the faculty. At the time Bob Marshall and Bruce Smith were there, and they were the ones I wanted to study with. Unfortunately Bruce retired halfway through my time. Bob was my graduate committee chairman. The MFA program was pretty open, allowing me to explore whatever path mattered to me. Much like most graduate programs, it is not about taking ‘classes’ per se, much more like getting feedback on whatever you might be doing. They have a good visiting artist program which allowed us to hear from divergent opinions and that made it interesting. As with most grad students I put on hold most of what I had been doing and really tried to make changes to my direction. That can be a tough road. I always felt a little upended. Not that that is bad, you just have to learn to push through it.

You seem to have moved from fine art to illustration. What do you like most about each? Yeah, a little backwards. Most illustrators move the opposite direction. I think of it as getting back to illustration. I joke that I am a bit ADD when it comes to art. I always want to be doing something new. My return came about when I was asked by BYU to be a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Illustration program. As I gave assignments, I would drive home thinking that I wanted to do the projects as well. So I did. Pretty soon I had a portfolio of works just sitting in the studio and decided to approach a rep and see if I could get work again as an illustrator. I was lucky, I got picked up by a New York agency and am now balancing time between illustration and my studio work. The two bodies of work are very different. I like the calm quiet of my studio. The slow process of building a painting, working through my ideas. I like the handcrafting of objects, building the supports, smelling the turps, etc. The illustration gives me a challenge to paint under constraints not of my making. It allows me to be much more playful and not have to worry about the perceived serious nature of ‘fine art’. And the variety of assignments makes if fun as well.

Visit Christopher Thornock’s website.

Follow Christopher Thornock on Instagram.

Miranda Meeks is an illustrator living in Utah with her husband and daughter. She graduated from BYU.

Tell us how you became an artist. I grew up in California and have been drawing since I was little. I decided to study illustration at BYU after my family moved to Utah, and I’ve been freelancing since my senior year ever since.

Your work has been called dark, mysterious, and abstract. The underlying theme in my artwork connects beauty with strangeness. I find the juxtaposition of combining darkness with beauty very intriguing, and I hope to create a similar experience for my viewers. I also appreciate when there’s a narrative behind an image, which encourages the viewer to ask questions and to maybe even create a story in their head about the image.

What tools–both traditional and digital–do you use regularly? I use mostly digital tools at the moment, and am experimenting with more traditional techniques currently. I use a combination of my Wacom Intuos Pro tablet at home and my Cintiq Companion 2 when I need to be mobile.

What are you working on next? Besides being a part of the upcoming 1001 Knights Project, I am also part of a group gallery show in San Francisco coming up in a few months. You can see the new paintings unveiled then!

Visit Miranda Meeks’ website.

Follow Miranda Meeks on Instagram.