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Illustration West 57 – Final Judge’s Interview: Pascal Campion

by | Oct 26, 2018 | News & Events

ILW 57 Show Chair Cliff Cramp interviews

Pascal Campion

[note all artwork is © Pascal Campion and cannot be used in any way without consent of the artist]

 

  1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself or how you got started?

When I was a little kid, I would ask my brother for his comics. He would only give them to me if I could draw the characters on the front page. That’s how I started getting into drawing.

 

  1. What’s your daily routine look like?

My daily routine is structured by my kids schedule….I wake up pretty early, and I read for a good hour or two in the morning, then I get the kids up, get them ready for school, drop them off and start work around 9 AM. I tend to have a bunch of different projects happening at the same time so I’ll either work on one or the other till lunch time.

I’ll go on a short bike ride around lunch just to get out, get back to work around 1 and work till I have to pick up the kids from school. (We have three kids and they have different times at which they come out!). Once they are all out and at their respective activities, I get back to work till roughly 6. When I work with overseas companies I tend to have calls at night so that’s when that happens.

  1. Who inspires you? What inspires you?

Everybody and everything. Not all the time, but sometimes and that’s all I need to get started.

 

  1. What are some favorite projects that you’ve had the opportunity to work on?

When I was doing animation I got to work on a really fun PBS commercial that had very little budget, extremely short deadline but with complete freedom in terms of direction and creativity. All we had to do was make sure the spot had the logos of the different shows they were promoting. It was one of the most intense three weeks of my life and the most rewarding as well.

 

  1. What advice do you have for illustrators beginning and pro?

I don’t think I have any good advice really. It seems to me that there are SO many different artists out there, doing such amazing work in SO many different mediums, areas, genres…telling stories or not. Some of them work like crazy and have sacrificed everything to it and they seem happy, some work the bare minimum and it works for them, some are 9 to 5 ers and it works for them and some are absolutely crazy hectic in their schedules and it works.
I’ve met artists who need to suffer to create and people, like me, who actually need to be fairly happy to create….I’ve seen( and worked with) people who needed to be high to get “there” and others who needed major physical exertion to become creative…and then you have the guys and girls that just sit down anywhere and create amazing stuff with anything.

I love to see that.
I guess I’d say…figure out who you are and what works for you?

 

6 Describe your workspace for us? 

A little room with a big window.

 

  1. What do you find challenging about being an artist/illustrator?

Drawing.

 

  1. What’s something artistically that you haven’t done that you would enjoy doing.

The cover of the New Yorker.

  1. What do you like to do in your free time?

DO you mean free… from work?
Usually when I am not working I am hanging out with the family.

When I don’t do family OR work related stuff I like to go on bike rides across the mountains, I like to read, hike…things that let me be on my own for a bit.

  1. Favorite movie and why?

WOw. so many.
The last good one I saw was Bad Genius…I loved it because of how it takes a simple story and makes you care so much for the characters. The editing was amazing on it as well.

Before that I saw Unforgiven which I loved as well…the pacing of it, the breadth of the wilderness and the characterization.

Sing Street before that…I loved that one so much I watched it twice in the same evening, some French comedies because…I’m half French I guess and I relate to that humor?

When I was a kid, around 11/12 I saw The Great Escape (On TV, not in theaters…I am not that old) and remember being absolutely in love with the “feel” of the movie.

I think I relate much more to the feel of a movie than to anything else. I can tell when a story doesn’t work but in a lot of cases I don’t care. As long as I believe in the characters and the mood of the movie does something to me, I’ll go along with it.