Life of the Mind
Draw Me a Story
The art and animation of David Cowles
by Robyn Rime
You could say it all started with MAD magazine. Like most of his generation, Adjunct Professor of Art David Cowles grew up with the magazine鈥檚 zany cartoons and satirical illustrations. Al Hirschfeld鈥檚 celebrity caricatures soon followed, and Cowles became hooked on the art form.
鈥淎 caricature has got to be recognizable, to really get at the essence of a person,鈥 Cowles says. Drawing on photo or video references, he distills his portraits to swatches of color with instantly identifiable personalities.
鈥淢any artists have captured the quirks and idiosyncrasies of their subjects,鈥 says Ron Netsky, professor of art, in the introduction to The Art of David Cowles (You鈥檒l Put Your Eye Out, 2006). 鈥淏ut only Cowles can nail them with little more than a few lines, a squiggle or two, and simple shapes of vibrant color.鈥
In addition to depicting people, Cowles enjoys the challenge of telling stories with illustrations. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 tell the whole story鈥攎y job is to get audiences to read your story,鈥 he explains. 鈥淚 get to coax them in, to put some candy on your gingerbread house.鈥
Since his days reading MAD magazine, Cowles鈥檚 own caricatures and illustrations have appeared in national publications such as Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek, Playboy, People, Vanity Fair, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and The New Republic, among others. His artwork also appeared recently in the Nazareth College exhibition Good Works: The Illustration Art Invitational, which he co-curated with Associate Professor of Art Kathy Calderwood last winter.
These days, Cowles challenges himself by adding motion to his artwork. 鈥淚鈥檝e been a fan of animation in one form or another for my whole life, from the Hanna Barbera fare and Gumby on TV to the Disney movies,鈥 he says. 鈥淢y brother and I even tried making some claymation movies in our youth. The thing that held me back from getting into animation sooner was the idea of doing 24 drawings for one second of film. But some of the new computer programs finally made it feasible for me to give it a try. And I haven鈥檛 looked back.鈥
With a style of illustration that lent itself to animation, the transition was both natural and fruitful. Cowles鈥檚 first animated short, 鈥淪uperfunk & Freaky-Dee,鈥 won the Grand Jury Prize for animation in the New York Independent Film and Video Festival in 2000. He has also produced a pilot for Playhouse Disney and several award-winning videos for the Grammy Award-winning rock and children鈥檚 group They Might Be Giants, including 鈥淪even Days of the Week,鈥 and 鈥淭he Ballad of Davy Crockett (in Outer Space).鈥 Recent animation projects include videos for Sesame Workshop, Rochester Institute of Technology, and an award-winning PSA for the 鈥淗2O Hero鈥 campaign.
Cowles believes that 鈥渕aking stuff move around鈥 will be a bigger and bigger part of not only his own artwork but the illustration field in general, and he notes with anticipation the interactive potential of magazines鈥 online applications. 鈥淎nimation isn鈥檛 separate anymore from illustration鈥攊t鈥檚 all part of the art stew,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 scary, but it鈥檚 also exciting.鈥
Robyn Rime is the editor of Connections.
David Cowles, Pixar's 25th.
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