To be an artist is a lifelong commitment to something that so many people don’t understand or they trivialize. A lawyer, doctor, or accountant—now those are “real” careers. A carpenter, plumber, or mechanic—those are jobs that provide “real” services. In the world in which we live, it’s hard to be taken seriously doing something that so many people consider a hobby.

Making art as a career is so much more than a hobby.

Being a professional artist is hard; there’s no way around it. You must pour your heart and soul into creating pieces that will move others to see the world in a new light, or at the very least, catch their eye. It’s up to you as the artist to filter everything in the world that everyone else sees and experiences every day and turn it into something new and interesting. To take the everyday and reveal it in a new light. This is your job as an artist.

I’ve been a professional artist for over 30 years now. It’s been an incredible journey for me that has brought me so much of every emotion you can imagine. Mostly, though, it’s brought me immeasurable amounts of joy.

I’ve been a fine art painter, illustrator, character designer, animator, film director, and teacher. My career has been a rich one. I spent 21 years at Disney where I had the opportunity to work on some of the most iconic films of our time. Having been a part of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, and Mulan was an incredible honor. Codirecting Brother Bear was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. In actuality, all of those films were difficult.

It was our job to create characters and stories that everyone could relate to. We wanted the audience to get behind our characters and cheer for them, cry for them, and fear for them. The only way we could do that was to take what we knew from the world around us and present it in new ways through characters and storylines. This is how we created journeys that the audience wanted to embark on.

What we would create in hundreds of thousands of frames for a film, Glyn does in single images through his photography. When I look at Glyn’s work, I tend to fill in the narrative that he is putting forth. His portraiture has depth. His lighting is unique. His compositions are bold. All of these qualities add up to single-image story telling.

This is where I feel Glyn’s and my work overlap so perfectly. We are both image makers. We both struggle to tell stories through our work. We both must find the right light, composition, color, and expression. We both need to make it all add up to something.

For so many years the tools of our trades were so different from one another. Mine being paint, canvas, and brushes; his being camera, film, and darkroom; but with the arrival of the digital age, even our tools overlap now.

Glyn and I both use Photoshop in our work. One of the things I love about Photoshop is the ability for each user to really make it work for them. Glyn and I have spent years exploring Photoshop, each trying to make it our own. It still amazes me, though, when Glyn and I get together, how we use many of the same tools to create completely different results. I love that! We have different results, but very similar concerns throughout the process. We both strive to find the right light and shadow, color, and composition. In the end, we both have all of the same elements, but I have a digital painting and Glyn has a digital photograph. Hopefully both tell a story.

After digesting all of what this book has to offer, you will come to understand the tools and their uses and will make them your own as well. Then it will be your turn to tell your own stories.

Not a bad “hobby.”

Aaron Blaise