Yesterday evening I had the great pleasure of discovering a gem in my own backyard. JLI Academy located right here in my hometown of Stockton, California is a two year old art academy founded by Jon Guerzon who comes from an animation background. And through this connection to animation he has found a powerful way of inspiring, supporting and helping to develop young local artists. Starting with just 20 students two years ago Jon says he has approximately 100 local. This weekend’s Mel Shaw exhibition is an example of the creative ways Jon uses to inspire his students which have included field trips to animation studios in the bay area.

The Academy space is plastered with the work of his students and witnessing firsthand the care and time Jon took as he worked with his students in a class and reviewing their workbooks was a real pleasure. When I found that Jon’s students were using low quality Chinese made office supply pencils in his class I simply couldn’t resist contributing a supply of our Palomino pencils to the program. For more on JLI Academy course offerings visit our new learning resource listing read on here.

Mel Shaw color study for "The Black Cauldron"
Mel Shaw it turns out is a local resident of Acampo and was present at the exhibition which includes both work from his Disney years and from his Western and California history drawings and paintings. Mel was named a Disney Legend in 2004. Mel worked on many Disney animated movies particularly as a story and character developer. He contributed to such classics as “Fantasia” (1941), “The Wind and the Willows”, the great mouse detective and later consulted and helped train animators working on I was particularly excited to see the simple classic elegance of his graphiteⁱ pencil work from his work on a storybook of “Dumbo”. I bought two reproductions from the California and nature series including this one here with a share of the proceeds going to JLI Academy. It was interesting to talk to Mel particularly since my own grandfather was a writer for Disney in the 50s and 60s, though he did not work on animations. I found this video from the 1981 television which has a few minutes of Mel discussing character development for the Disney Movie “The Fox & the Hound”.

In the spirit of Christmas, Pencils.com has teamed up with Sean Sanczel, the creator of Pencilman, to sponsor production of a new Pencilman episode celebrating Christmas. See if you can notice one of Pencilman's new buddies, the Palomino HB artist pencil. I've also posted this deleted scene with the full introduction of the new Palomino HB character. We hope that you enjoy this new episode and have a Merry Christmas and happy holiday season!

Remember our Palomino Premium Art and Writing pencils make a great Christmas gift or stocking stuffer.

We found Brian doing some very nice realistic pencil drawings recently and asked if he'd enjoy being one of our Featured Artists. This is a new series we're starting here on Pencils.com to draw some attention to some really great pencil artwork. Our interview with Brian posted here provides insight to Brian's inspiration and influences and what attracts him to working in graphiteⁱ pencil.

To see more examples of Brians featured work here on pencils.com link here.

Brian also works to help others in the art and drawing community with his own website dueysdrawings.com. This site features much of Brian's work as well as provides a few free tutorials and a message board for like minded artists to connect. Including this one on how to draw faces which is an area he seems to specialize in focusing on portrait drawing.

We welcome Brian to our growing Pencil Pal community here on Pencils.com and hope that he'll become an active participant.

We're always interested in expanding our interviews for other artists, writers or even teachers and featuring something special you may be doing. Please contact us if you have something you'd like to get featured here on Pencils.com.

Draw a funny holiday picture and win prizes!

Be one of the first 100 participants to submit your artwork and you will receive free 8 count “Christmas Pencils” from pencils.com.

Anyone ages 5-8 and 9-13 can submit artwork for a chance to win Premium Artist set of Palomino drawing & color pencils. Grand prize is an iPod Nano.

Click Here to find out more on what to draw and how to submit your artwork. Good luck!

CREATIVE TEENS CAN EARN MONEY FOR COLLEGE: YOUNG WRITERS AND ARTISTS IN HIGH SCHOOL INVITED TO SUBMIT WORK TO THE SCHOLASTIC ART & WRITING AWARDS

12 Seniors Will Receive Top Honors and $10,000 Awards; Additional $3.25 Million in Art and Writing Scholarships Available to Selected Students

New York, NY (October 1, 2008) -- The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing outstanding visual art and writing created by teenagers to a national audience, has launched their call for submissions for the 2009 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The Awards offer early recognition for creative teenagers and art and writing scholarship opportunities for graduating high school seniors.

Creative young writers and artists in grades 7-12 are invited to submit their best work in more than 25 categories, including animation, poetry, sculpture, fashion design, journalism, photography, novel writing, science fiction and many more. Learn more about regional submission deadlines and how to submit work here.

You can see 2008 winners work here. These are very talented students in arts, photography, writing. Take a look and be inspired to participate yourself.