Passionate about drawing and painting animals, Aaron Blaise is a perfect example of you can find ways of reinventing yourself as an artist even when you love and are very successful at what you are doing. He has collaborated with Walt Disney Studios for Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas and Mulan, among others. He also co-directed Brother Bear, which earned an Oscar nomination for best Animated Feature. Then, an unpredictable turn in his career made him revive his painting career.
He remembers sitting in the garage with his father as a little six year old drawing pictures of the ducks in his field guide books as he carved his decoys. By age seven he knew most every species of duck in North America. As far as he could remember, he always had my sketchbooks and paints with him.
He graduated from the Ringling College of Art with a certificate in Illustration in Aaron was then hired by Walt Disney Feature Animation where he spent 21 years helping to create some of the greatest animated films ever made, working as an animator or supervising animator.
He left Disney to pursue an opportunity and help start up a new animation studio called Tradition Studios. During the two and a half year life that the studio had, they developed several feature film ideas. But it was a film called The Legend of Tembo about a little African Elephant that took root. Like many start ups though, the company he was working for ran out of funds and went bankrupt.
The loss of his job as an animation director though has been shaping up to become one of the greatest opportunities of his life. He ended up reviving his painting career and teaching other artists about drawing and painting.