Artist Spotlight
A Day in the Life of ... Tim Brazier
How does your day begin?
I wake up as early as possible, I'm actually a morning person and the earlier I get up the better my day is. I start everyday reading the scriptures and when I finish I head down stairs and get on the internet. Most of my mornings are spent on the computer answering and sending e-mails. I'm a freelance illustrator and a big part of that is keeping up with my clients and the constant search for new work. I like to get all the boring stuff done in the morning and then I call illustrate and draw with the rest of my day.
I try to get out and go jogging every other morning but you can probably tell from my picture that I need to try harder. My wife is always a big help and she does what she can to make sure I stay on track. (*see more photos of Tim's life and family.)
What are some of your creative habits?
I get inspired by all sorts of stuff, in college I had a big problem deciding on a major because I liked so many different things. What I liked about illustration is I could take things I learned in my Archeology, Biology, and Astronomy classes and put them into my paintings. Living in San Diego I have plenty of places to go for inspiration like the beach, the zoo, and of course Disneyland. When I can't go and see things first hand, I love to read about them in books. Whenever I get an illustration job or idea you can always find me at the local bookstore looking for books with plenty of pictures on subjects that range from Ostriches to the rise and fall of the Mayan empire. My favorite thing to do in the whole world is to talk with my wife. When we were dating I knew I had found the right girl when we spent the whole day together and neither of us ran out of things to say. We both enjoy going out to dinner where we can sit down together, talk, and enjoy good food.
What other art related jobs do you do?
I'm still pretty fresh out of college but after just a year I have been given some awesome opportunities. While I was finishing up my BFA at Brigham Young University I got involved with my best friend producing all the artwork for a comic book called Spirit and Image. My friend Daniel Monahan and I wanted to create a comic book that would appeal to more of a family audience so we formed Bob House Comics (http://www.bobhouse.com) and published our book. The book received a lot of attention and we are currently reviewing offers to make the concept into a children's cartoon series.
Right now most of my income comes from freelance work I do for different companies. Freelance is hard work and it's really tough, especially just starting out, but it gives me the opportunity to work with a whole bunch of different companies and people.
Freelance illustration is all about feast and famine one week I'll be buried under three deadlines and the next I'll have nothing, but it certainly makes life interesting. In my down time I like to work on developing concepts for childproof's books, and animated cartoons. My favorite thing to do with my artwork is to create characters and stories for publication check some of them out along with my other artwork at http://timbrazier.com
Who do you currently have licensing agreements with?
Let's see I've done lots of different things for some pretty random places so I'll just mention my favorites.
What are your future plans?
Right now I am working hard to get my name out there, I'd like to continue as a freelance artist but who knows what the future holds. Hopefully some of the concepts I am working on will find there way into the public eye. I am just finishing up a children's book called, "Teacher the New Kid Smells", and I would love to see that get published. I have lots of plans and ideas for my artwork but really I just want to have fun doing what I love.
My wife Carrie and I have been married for two years, we are hoping to have children soon and settle down in our first house. Personally I want to have at least 10-12 kids and I'm trying to warm my wife up to the idea.
Final thoughts?
Before I met my wife I never would have gotten into doing crafty projects because everything out there seemed too girly. My goal with pcCrafter is to create fun bright artwork that won't embarrass your kids when you make their scrapbooks, and hopefully get them excited about crafting.
Life is good! Look out for some amazing creatables, pcCrafter is a great company, they give artists lots of opportunities to explore and be creative with their work. I feel extremely blessed because of the talents God has given me and I hope to be able to share them with everyone out there in one form or another. Later skaters!
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