Stan: Aaah!
Aaron: Hi, part of the studio. Stan: Hey guys, welcome to Proko. My name
Stan Prokopenko, this is Aaron Blaise. And we're here in his studio, in Florida.
Aaron: Yeah, the land near the sea. Stan: Anyway, we're gonna be walking around
his studio, um, he's gonna pull out some sketchbooks and some other cool stuff.
Aaron: Yeah, everybody asks me about my studio. What does it look like.. And it's actually really
small, I have a very small room off to the side of my house. I keep everything packed really
tight in here. And actually I cleaned up pretty good for you, so it's usually chaotic.
Stan: You got a haircut. Aaron: I did get a haircut, yeah, I actually,
I kept my hair long for 25 years and I'd cut it every three years and donate it. In over
25 years I donated eight feet of hair. Stan: Well this is um, the demo we've been
recording, well, we did recording the whole thing, the whole two-day process including
the materials, and he does a lion anatomy demo. I'm talking about the motion and all
the forms in lion. proko.com/blaise you can preorder now, it's amazing.
Aaron: Oh, thanks yeah, this is - this is um, you know, I love - my favorite medium is
drawing, I love to paint, I love to animate, I love all that. I have a big love
of charcoal and so lately, I've kind of pushed painting aside other than my watercolors.
But I've kinda push painting aside and I've just been doing these really big charcoal
drawings and I like you know, getting right - right in the face of big cats and they're
big and dramatic and they're fun to create the textures and all that kind of stuff, so
that's what we did. So this is -this is one that you can see all the little cat prints
on it, 'cause I had it only on my easel. And the cat was getting up and putting her
paws on it, but it's a cat with cat prints, so there you go. But there, this is one I did for
a demo on a live stream, a bison that I had seen in uh, Yellowstone. That was a lot of
fun that took a lot of graphite or not graphite but charcoal.
Stan: I got wondering here. Aaron: Oh yeah, let's trade places. So that's
a - that's a big leopard. This was a wild leopard that I photographed in uh, in Kenya.
Stan: It looks like you're right under it. Aaron: Yeah.
Stan: Like, is that you - did you cheat the perspective a little bit or?
Aaron: No, that's I, 'cause the - the way he was leaning back and looking up and I happened
to be in the Land Rover sitting back quite away, I just had enough distance that I didn't
have to look down on him. Stan: This is my favorite one.
Aaron: Yeah, that one took me the longest as well.
Stan: How long was this one? Aaron: That's like three days, three days
of drawing. Stan: Three days like what, like five hours?
Aaron: Probably five hours a day, yeah, I can't go longer than five hours. Some people
can I can't, my brain gets turned to mush, mushy, mushy. This one I did, um, I just wanted
to do something a little more experimental. And uh, um, I just let the... with the charcoal
and creating the grass, I just used my eraser and Just like, you know, lightly pulled out
all the grass with my eraser. Excuse me, while I pull this out. That's one of the things
I don't do is spray fix any of my drawings because it changes the way they look. And
uh, and so I - I just gotta, I try to get them under glass as fast as possible. This
is a lion that I... a lioness that I photographed in Kenya as well. It was on the same trip
actually as the leopard, but this was a lot of fun to draw. I just love doing big drawings.
Yeah, they were more I did this tiger, I've got a whole bunch of them and I've sold quite
a few of these. But this is a tiger done in charcoal, same thing. I photographed
this tiger actually in Sarasota, Florida, was that a big cat rescue place and uh, this
fellow is a beautiful animal. From now the animating, we're not doing digital art, we're
done doing watercolor I'm doing these big charcoals, I love doing big charcoals. I've
been experimenting on wood, I just wanted to see how charcoal and - and the pencil would
- would go on that and I did - this one I did spray and it changed everything and I had
to go back over it. I wanna get a big four by eight sheet and just do a big charcoal
drawing on this big four-foot by eight-foot sheet, do it on a big piece of plywood. I've
got stuff all over the place in here just lying around.
Stan: Go ahead and lead the way the rest of your...
Aaron: Let's see, my wolf pelt, I gotta wolf skin right here. This is from um, there's
a guy that I know up in Montana who raises wolves. He's got exotic animals, he's got
bears, he's got all kinds of stuff and um, he's been raising them for years. And so every
once in a while, one of the wolves in his pack will pass away from natural causes, old age.
And rather than just waste it, he'll use the pelt for educational purposes and
that sort of thing. And so I was up there, I was just up there over the winter, but um,
I was there last summer and um, and he gave that to me, so that was really cool. Yeah,
and that's - so, I use it for reference I did uh, I've done a couple of wolf paintings since
then and that really comes in handy. And so the animal you know, he's continuing to give
even after he's gone. This is my art bag, I've got a couple of them and they're from
Lilorosh. They're a couple in India that make these bags handmade and every bag is custom.
You can tell them what you want and they will create it for you. This one is jam-packed,
uh, but it's got - holds all of my pens and pencils and whatnot. And uh, and then inside here
I've got you know, I've got my pallets, right here I've got my watercolor block, I've got
everything in here, then we've got another pocket on the back, that takes even more stuff.
So I've got my watercolors in here, I've got my jars of water, you know it just, it - it
holds everything. So I was just in Hawaii, I brought it with me to Hawaii, but these
bags have been - been with me all over the world. Um, you know, with our business, we do
a lot of lecturing and uh, and so we've hit 10 countries in the last year just
going around and lecturing and I bring this with me everywhere I go. And so I got... one
of the things I like to do, I see you here- Stan: Oh, yeah, this one, I saw this on your
Instagram. Aaron: Yeah, so we'll see, one of the things
I like to do is, I like to, uh, when I go to the zoo, in this case, I was at a - a farm
and so I like to draw big. I bring out like a China marker, and when I'm drawing the animals
I like to sit down and just draw a really big. And so, I wanted something that I could
put my - my big newsprint pads into and so- Stan: 18 by 24.
Aaron: 18 by 24, and so I asked them to make me a bag like this but blow it up, blow
it up huge. You can see how I can, you know, I can smuggle a child in here, it's just huge.
And so, what's great about it though is it takes these newsprint pads just perfectly.
I gotta stretch it out here, but it goes in, but there you go. So it sits in there perfectly.
It fits perfect and so I can go out to the zoo and - and bring all my drawing materials
and my newsprint and everything else all in one bag.
Stan: You put it on a board or something? Aaron: Yeah, and I have a board too.
Stan: Okay and it fits in there? Aaron: Yeah, there it is. Like even if I'm
doing uh, like character drawings, I like to draw big in a newsprint sometimes I would
do this at Disney. Like these are some just quick sketches I was doing of a real cougar,
this was a cat - this's a Florida panther. But you know these are-
Stan: That's - that's from imagination, all right?
Aaron: Yeah, that's from imagination. So I like to sit down and just do these big sketches
um, of characters and this is what I would do at Disney.
Stan: Hey, is that brother bear? Aaron: Yeah, yeah.
Stan: Nice. Aaron: And this - this is a little demonstration
I did on just you know, using the eraser method on these characters. I've got piles
and piles of these. Stan: If you guys don't know, Aaron directed
Brother Bear and he animated for Lion King, Aladdin.
Aaron: I did Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty And The Beast and Pocahontas and Mulan.
Stan: Nice, are those characters from the Lion King or are they?
Aaron: No, these are things I just did in the last couple of years. I was drawing for
my grandkids and all of that. My grandkids love coming over because we all draw together. And they're
still at the age where they love to draw. So, either kids grows out of it or they don't
like we do. Stan: You're still at the age where
you love to draw. Aaron: Exactly, I know I just never grew out
of it. What have I got, oh this looks kinda cool. Obviously, I don't keep things in order
around here. Stan: It's a sketchbook?
Aaron: Yeah, no this isn't a sketchbook. These are some photos. This is from
one of my last trips to Alaska. So these are wild grizzlies that I photographed up in Alaska
and uh, just beautiful, beautiful animals. This grizzly walked right past me, she was
as close as you are to me and walked right past me with this fish. And I had everything
- I had everything - it took everything in my body not to run away because I had a ranger
with me he says "don't run, don't run, don't run". And she walked right past me. I recently
did a digital painting of this guy right here, but it's just a beautiful, I loved the way
the light was hitting on this far mountain, was really cool. These are dall sheep, these
are white rams and you can see them from the valley floors and they're way, way, way up
the mountains. They're really interesting because uh, you can see them from the ground,
from the valley and you can hike up to them. This guy we hiked up to is a hard hike. He's
just a little white dot up there and as long as you stay below him, you can get as close
as you want. I was only like 15-20 feet away from this guy. But as soon as you get above
him, you've got the advantage and they get spooked and they take off. So as long as you
stay below, they're fine. Stan: 'cause you can to jump onto them or
something? Aaron: Yeah. Like here, I was shooting
with a long lens and he kept looking at me 'cause I was way up above him and he
didn't like me up there at all. Moose and caribou, this is all in Denali National Park
right in central Alaska. This is one of my favorite favorite places in the world, they
call it the Serengeti of the north 'cause there's so much wildlife there.
Stan: Do you still go on these trips for photographing and just seeing wildlife or is most of it
for workshops. Aaron: I do. No, it's - it's for myself. I
usually - on these trips, I mostly do for myself. As a matter of fact, I'm going - actually
the next one's gonna be with a group in October. Um, there's a group of artists, we're going
to get back to Kenya and then we're gonna be going to the Maasai Mara.
Stan: How many times a year do you do these trips?
Aaron: Um, maybe once or twice, I mean not - not super - maybe three times.
Stan: Are you always traveling? Aaron: I was just - I was just in Mo- Yeah,
I am always traveling and I was just in Montana like a month and a half ago photographing
at the guy's place that I had the wolf pelt here
Stan: What are these? Aaron: These are - so these um, like I just
pulled out my gouache paints and I wanted to do - I hadn't done a gouache painting in a long
time. And I want to get my feet wet again and so I did a little - this is a little gouache
painting that I did the other day. And then I just finished doing a watercolor course.
And so these are... there's another gouache painting, I did this as a live stream, one
of the rhinos that I'd seen. Um, but these are all watercolors that I did as demos
for this course that I just finished and I've got piles and piles of them. Um, you
know, just talking about painting loose, how to use frisket you know, letting watercolor
be watercolor, how do you paint fur textures? Um, you know, all that kind of stuff. So many
people get into watercolor and they get so tight and they get so, you know, they, it
- it they - they get so bound up, and so I wanted to show that you can be really loose
and let watercolor be - be what it is. Let it you know, painting skies can be super easy
and fun and that sort of thing if you just you know, attack it and let the watercolor
do what it does best and that's you know, let it run around and let it do its thing.
You know this is uh, Acadia for the sketchbook that you saw there where we're up in - up
in Maine. Um, I went back again a couple of years ago with my father and I took him and
I came back and this is uh, I used one of the photographs and did a quick watercolor
sketch, those rocks they are just incredible. This is a bison that I saw out in the snow
just a few weeks ago when I was up in Montana, watercolor sketch to that, same with this
landscape. This is a- this one I was talking - in both of these landscapes, I was talking
about the abstract qualities of landscape and how when you really just look at the
abstract shapes, they're not really representational, it's just our brain kind
of pulling it all together. And uh, these - these are just quick ones I did out of my
head just showing the use of frisket. Stan: That's a cool one
Aaron: Yeah. Stan: That's pretty fun.
Aaron: And then uh- Stan: What's frisket?
Aaron: Yeah, uh, frisket, when you paint, it's like uh, latex, liquid latex and you
paint it on the paper where- Stan: Oh, and then you take it off?
Aaron: Yeah, you paint it on the paper where you don't want the watercolor to go and so
that's what I did here. So I just painted on the clouds and the sun and I did these
big washes over the top and then I pulled the frisket off and then finished off the
clouds. Stan: Okay.
Aaron: And one of the - one of the first things I ever - I started learning watercolor when
I was eight-years-old and my stepfather who had uh, he had a degree, a bachelor's degree
in uh, interior design. And so, a lot of the designs he would do, he'd go over them in watercolors.
So he sat me down one night when I was eight and he showed me how to do a wet into wet
wash, I just remember how magical it was. He did a sunset, he says "this is you know,
this is how you do a wash" and I just remember being completely mesmerized by it. And so
the very first lesson that I give in my watercolor course as a little homage to my stepfather
and I sat down and they did a sunset wash just to show how you know, how the medium
works and uh, just having fun with that. And then this was just a little uh, Prisma color
sketch and uh, you know, on hot press paper, smooth palette color paper and uh, and doing
watercolor washes over the top of that, how you can tint drawings and that sort of thing.
So these are all part of the course. I got a pile there and I've got - I think I've got
more. This is - this is just a... that was just a crappy drawing, this one here... I've
got piles of stuff around here. Stan: That's a cool one.
Aaron: Yeah that was - that was just a made up lion, I just want to do some kind of character
but that's, once again it's ink and watercolor and then I threw a little bit of gouache over
the top for the light areas. And then over the summer, I was in Montana again and photographed
uh, among other animals, I photographed this pronghorn and then went back to my hotel room
that night and did a little pen - it's a ballpoint pen sketch with watercolor
over the top, so lots of stuff like that. Yeah, this is a little watercolor of a...
oh, it got damaged, but this is a watercolor of a polar bear that I just did recently.
Um, I'm doing an animated show called Snow Bear, and so I got onto a polar bear kick
and so this is a ballpoint pen and watercolor sketch that I did. But you can see how I-
Stan: Is that ballpoint pen in there, all the little -
Aaron: Yeah yeah yeah exactly. Stan: So delicate.
Aaron: Yeah that's how it's that's one of the things I love about ballpoint is you can
get super delicate with it, but stupid me, I treat my stuff badly and I've got cat hair
on it and all kinds of stuff. Oh this is cool, this is uh - I did a show a while back
um, I did a show a while back. Uh, it was - It was on cats and so they asked me if I
would participate, and it was all paintings and things like that, but I wanted to see
if I could do something animation related. So I did these two panels each panel had four
drawings of a cat. The box cycle of a cat and then I took those drawings and I put them
into little thing... this I put them in this and this accompanied the show so that people
could look at the images on the wall but then they could flip this and they could see how
the animation works. So that was kind of cool, it was really cool that they - they let me
do it. You know, the guy that was running the show is really kind of forward-thinking
and he wanted to try something that they hadn't really done before and it turned out to be
a really popular attraction for the show, kids loved it. That's a real monkey's skull
that I picked up in Nepal when I was there and it's the skull is underneath all that
jewelry and silver and all that kind of stuff. Stan: Yeah, what's that right next to it to
the left? Aaron: That anatomical skull?
Stan: Yeah, what is that? Aaron: That thing from Proko.
Stan: Oh wow! Aaron: Look at that.
Stan: Who's Proko? Aaron: There it is. Have you ever shown them
before? Stan: No, well I haven't, I haven't released
it yet, though it'll probably be released by the time-
Aaron: Oh, can I show them? Stan: Yeah, by the time this video comes out
it'll probably release. Aaron: This is so awesome. So my good friend
Stan Prokopenko gave me this. So here it is, the unboxing. So you can - the other cool thing
is that it's got a tripod mount right here. You can screw it mount it on a tripod and
put it at different angles and the jaw is magnetic, look at this, how cool is that?
It's a beautiful print, these are so nice. I highly, highly recommend it and I just got
it - I just got it so I haven't figured out where to put it yet.
Stan: Put it on a mini tripod. Aaron: Well, oh, that's a - that's a perfect
idea, I've got a mini tripod in amongst all this junk somewhere. Yeah, somewhere.
Stan: Onto that cool stuff. Aaron: Yeah well-
Stan: Well actually this table. Aaron: Oh yeah, this desk. Yeah, this desk,
this is my original Disney desk. So, um, I jumped around in different desks while I was
there, but this one once I got on it I stayed with it and it moved with me every time I'd
move offices. So I've had this desk since Beauty and the Beast and uh, the day, you can
see a little carving right here it's all scratched in. I scratched it in with an X-Acto knife,
but what I did was I rubbed in graphite as much as I could into the table and then I
sat down with a X-Acto knife and scratched out this lion portrait on the day that I started
The Lion King, and it says right here 12/92. So that's when I started - that's when I sketched
it. And then uh, I was on the movie for about a year and I spray fixed it, so that's how
it survived all these years it's been spray fixed. Yeah, kinda cool, lots - lots of history
with this desk. And so when I left Disney um, they - they let me buy it.
Stan: Oh, you had to buy it. Oh, so this was like the desk at the studio.
Aaron: Yeah, this desk at the studio where I actually worked every day and animated,
yeah, this is- Stan: So everyone had the same?
Aaron: Yeah, we all had the same desk. Stan: Oh, that's cool.
Aaron: Yeah, they were awesome. Yeah, they were great, I mean they it's uh, you know
it's a $5,000 desk but they- I bought it for 1,200 bucks.
Stan: What are you working on? Aaron: This is um, some hand animation I did, uh,
I was doing a demonstration on how to do a take. So these are - these are the drawings
that I did for the demonstration. I also wanted to show you how, well I - I wanted to show
the viewers how distorted we could get. Here're the characters going from this squished scrunchie
face up to this big - look right here, so you go whoop. Changing expression, big smile,
coming down, the circles are my keys. So here the cat's looking up and then doing a take
and getting really excited. And you can see as the head comes up the jaw catches up. This
is one here, I thumbnail everything, you know I make sure that my thumbnail... thumbnailing
is you know, doing like pre- sketches trying to figure it all out ahead of time. So these
are some thumbnails that they did for a charac-- This is a character I designed
for one of my acting for animation courses. So these are all sketches I did as I was trying
to figure out his design and uh, he's just this big burly guy, kind of a marine looking
dude. And uh, and I did this little thing where I had him turning around. This is him
turning around. It's just a simple turnaround, but um, I did it so I could figure out his
uh, the way he's built, with him just turning around, the eyebrow going up. He's not a nice
guy, he's mean, he's a - he's a hard-ass this guy. So these are - these are thumbnails for
another little show that I was animating with him. And so you know, here he is, then he
- he comes forward, bah, I can remember what he was saying. Stan: This is for a course you did? Aaron: Yeah, these didn't make it into the
course, I didn't end up using these but I saved the drawings. And uh, there's a scene
- there's a scene in Beauty and the Beast where she, Belle is saying something to him
trying to plead for him to let her father go. And he goes well "he shouldn't have trespassed
here!" and he comes right in the camera, " But he shouldn't have passed here!" And I animated
that in the movie, so I wanted to do something similar with this character. He starts here
and does a take, you can see him scrunch up, see that scrunch.
Stan: Oh, yeah. Aaron: Urghh, urghh, urghh, now he jumps forward,
so fun stuff to do. Stan: Do you still map out the like the-
Aaron: Yeah, so these are the charts. Yeah, so these are how the in-betweens go. All the
in-between drawings if I had done them but I didn't. Because this is like drawing one,
that's drawing nine, so there's a whole bunch of drawings that have to go in between, but
it's such a subtle movement, I don't wanna have to do all those drawings. So there's
three more drawings that go in between there, so that's that. And uh, what else we got?
So this is my digital set up over here and- Stan: With three monitors?
Aaron: Yeah, three monitors. Well, this monitor 'cause I use this one mainly for Dustin my
son, 'cause when we do our live streams, depending on if I'm sitting at this desk or
this desk, he sits in the opposite chair and he uses that monitor to monitor. To monitor
what's going on with our - with our - with our stream, yeah, yeah. And then I use these,
this is my reference monitor when I'm you know when I have reference to use, I put it
up here. And then this is where my biggest Cintique, this is a 32 uh, that I do all of my
- all of my work. And then the stand, I built the stands for it, the stand right here and
I built this one. Stan: It was very recent right, that you built
the stand? Aaron: Yeah, this one I built recent 'cause
I just got this one. Uh, I had a different setup, I had a 24 - a 27 on the last one and
I had a different setup, but this one we just threw it together really fast. And
then this, this rotates it can move it around you know put it...
Stan: And you don't wanna just buy an arm? Aaron: Nuh, why? I like building - I like
building stuff. Stan: That's cool.
Aaron: Yeah, and I'm gonna paint them all black eventually, so they all blend together.
Stan: I kinda like the wood- Aaron: I do too actually. Oh, my skull, this
is - this is- Stan: My favorite one is right here. Giraffe,
it's a freaking giraffe. Aaron: It's a giraffe, yeah, and it's real,
that's a real skull. Um, this one uh, I think was hunted, unfortunately. Uh, I went into
a taxidermy shop in uh, in Texas and they had it for sale and I just didn't want it
to go to waste. I didn't want its death to be you know, in vain. So I bought it and I've
used it as a reference, I've used it for teaching uh, so it's really cool. These are casts right
here, all four of these are cast. So I have a whole line of animal drawing courses on
my Web site. And so, anytime I pick a new animal to do a course on I order the skull for that
animal. Stan: Oh, okay.
Aaron: So here I just I did a course on bears and so I ordered a grizzly bear skull and
a polar bear skull. Plus I ordered the polar bear skull because I'm doing an animated show
called Snowbear, so I wanted to have this. And uh, so you can see they're - they're significantly
different and yet significantly the same, but like polar - uh, grizzly bears have this
forehead they have a dish, whereas polar bears are really flat from the top of their head
to their snout, um, and they're much longer, it's a longer head. But you can see too, there
are a lot more robust, it's a bigger animal, polar bears are bigger than grizzlies, they're
the biggest carnivore on earth. And then a horse skull right here.
Stan: How cool, yeah, I was wondering about that one.
Aaron: Yeah, that's a horse skull. And a lot of people don't realize, horses have canines,
right here. And not all of them do, but a lot of them do.
Stan: Why do they have such big gaps between their like-?
Aaron: Uh, just for the grinding for the for- Stan: And then there's nothing in between.
Aaron: Yeah, I know, no there's nothing there. They - they clip - clip the grass through
their front and they grind it with their back. Stan: And what do they do with the canine?
Aaron: The - the uh, it's mostly males that will have them and they still use them for
fighting. Stan: Oh, okay.
Aaron: Yeah, when they're fighting other males. This is a lion skull and I did a course on
big cats, I just love this thing. You can see how robust, how big it... first of all
how big a lion's head is. And uh, but this is all-
Stan: Almost the size of your head. Aaron: Almost the si -almost the size of my big
fat head. [laughter] Uh, but I'm always on the lookout for skulls, you know, uh like
I said these... I - I did a course on big cats and so I ordered these and these are
all casts. This is uh, this is the lion and this is a leopard, so you can see that the
significantly smaller, um, but I'm always on the lookout for uh, new skulls. And sometimes
I find them like I have an otter skull that I have in storage from an otter that I found
on the side of the road and I kinda hid it off in the bushes and went back later and
got the skull. But this is - this is real and you can't have a - you can't live in Florida
uh, without having an alligator skull. Stan: Is this one real?
Aaron: Yeah, this is real, this is a real skull. I picked this one up at a - at a swap
meet. So yeah, I think it paid like 30 bucks for it too, just yeah.
Stan: Oh my god. Aaron: Yeah, but it's an awesome skull. This
is a big gator, this is about a probably 10-foot gator, so he's a big one.
Stan: So, all the skulls on this shelf right here, they - they look like the same skull
but just 'cause they are smaller like I don't know anything about cats. Are they all cats?
Aaron: No. Stan: They're not.
Aaron: What's interesting is, these three are the same and these three are the same.
So these three are cats. So this is a leopard. Stan: Okay.
Aaron: This is a mountain lion or cougar, puma, and then this is a bobcat.
Stan: Okay. Aaron: So you can see that they basically
all have the same structure, it just gets more and more delicate.
Stan: Yeah. Aaron: And then here, you have a fox, and
then a coyote, and then a wolf, right here so, yeah. And uh, this is a big gray wolf,
it's a big animal. Stan: So it's dogs and cats.
Aaron: Dogs and cats right and they got dogs and cats on there.
Stan: But they wouldn't - they are so [Inaudible] Aaron: I know, but we all, I mean it's really
I mean you can look at our skull and just reshape it and it's we've got all the same
parts. Stan: Reshape it.
Aaron: Except we - we you know, this bone connects whereas on the other animals they
don't connect. For those of you that are Disney people, this is you know, the original artists
that worked with Walt Disney with the Nine Old Men. They were the original animators
and probably my favorite artists out of the nine old men was Milt Kahl. And Milt animated
Shere Khan and all kinds of really cool animation, but this is one of his drawings that a friend
of mine gave me and it's like one of my most prized possessions. And this is about one-fifth
of all my books too, so I've got piles and piles and piles of books and they're mostly
art, they're either art books or nature books. This book here, this is one of the first,
when I was a young kid this came out in 1980 I believe. So I was - I was 12 in 1980 and
I remember getting this book and um, Guy Coheleach. Guy Coheleach is, he's pushing 90 now, so
you can see how young he was in the photograph there. Stan: Looks like Mr. Bean. Aaron: Yeah, but the images in here these
are all his paintings. And I was just, I would copy these drawings and paintings, he drew
so or he draws so well. And um, you know and really a wide variety of mediums too and that
really influenced me. There's acrylic paintings in here, there's watercolor paintings, there's
oil paintings. And um, I always loved this book. So I've had a version of this book 'cause
uh, the first one I had when I was 12, we actually, our house burnt down and I lost
all my books, but I've over the years I've kind of re-redone them. So this one I was
able to find again in another store, I've got all kinds of stuff, so yeah.
Stan: Nice, hey I see your YouTube play button. Aaron: Yeah, that's a hundred thousand, yeah.
Stan: What's in this little uh, what's all this stuff, is this materials? Uh, okay.
Aaron: Yeah, this is where I get my acrylic paints in there. What have I gotten here?
I've got palettes in there and clips, oh, there's the clips I knew I had clips.
I was using those bread clips on there before and the last big charcoal drawing I did, I
went out and bought clips I forgot that I bought clips.
Stan: I have the same thing where I'll have like drawers and drawers stuff.
Aaron: Yeah. Stan: And I'll just go buy it again.
Aaron: Exactly, So you end up with piles of the same stuff. So here's more acrylics just
different brands. These are - Stan: Those are marshmallows?
Aaron: No those are sponges and uh, clothes and clothes dyes, and markers, sharpie markers,
and charcoal, so everything is - everything has got its place, yeah, more pens. So I've
got piles of piles of - I think this is paintbrushes, piles of paintbrushes.
Stan: What is this? Is this a dandy, Hollywood best man? Is this a dandy?
Aaron: No, my kids pick this up in L.A. at one of the little gift shops in Hollywood
and bought it for me. Stan: Okay, best man.
Aaron: Yeah. Stan: Your kid bought it?
Aaron: Yeah, it was the best thing they could find. The closest thing they could find to
best dad. Stan: Best man.
Aaron: Yeah. And this is Nick, Nick Burch my business partner.
Nick: I - I live in this cabinet. Stan: Yeah, he just walked out.
Aaron: So, yeah, I mean I've got piles more but we'll be for hours. Oh, that moose antler
up there. I found that under a tree in my first trip to Alaska back in 1993.
Stan: And you brought it back? Aaron: And I brought it back.
Stan: On the plane? Aaron: Yeah, I checked it, I wrapped it, put
all the- I made sure all the points were covered in - in uh, cardboard and then I wrapped the
whole thing in bubble wrap and checked. Stan: that's funny, cool. Well, thank you
so much. Aaron: Yeah man.
Stan: Great studio. Aaron: Yeah.
Stan: I'm sure people when they see your work and they see it like all this stuff you do
these courses you make, they don't think like your studio is this little box.
Aaron: It's tiny little, yeah it's just a tiny little room. I've had big studios and
I've had little ones this is probably the most efficient studio I've had 'cause everything's
got its place and you know when we do all of our live streaming in here, we do all of
our - we record all of our courses in here, so it works out great.
Stan: Nice, yeah, you used to live on an island right, in a - in a big house, how big was your studio in there?
Aaron: Uh, it was, it took - it was a whole floor, it was a whole floor.
Stan: So it was five times bigger than this? Aaron: Yeah, oh yeah absolutely. When I was
in California I had another one that was, I had a whole building that was my studio
and that was - that was awesome. Stan: The whole Disney studio?
Aaron: Yeah well I had - I had three different buildings on my - on my property and one of
them was just a studio, that I miss I did like that.
Stan: So you prefer the bigger space? Aaron: Yeah, yeah definitely, especially if
I wanna do some big paintings and things like that. You know when doing the charcoal drawings,
it gets kind of cramped and it's tight and- Stan: If you had a bigger studio would you
draw- Aaron: I'd go digger.
Stan: You'd go bigger, uh, okay. Aaron: Definitely go bigger.
Stan: So this is, I see you're being held back by the studio.
Aaron: Yeah. Stan: Oh man, so when are you upgrading?
Aaron: Well, we'll see, I'm currently looking for property and a bigger house because
my family grew. Yeah, so we've got - we've got more people here. This house I used to
live in alone, but my girlfriend moved in and three daughters, so yeah, so we've - we've
really expanded in size, so I gotta - gotta get a bigger place. So, and actually that's
one of the things we'd like to do too is, you know we're doing a lot of workshops nowadays
and I'd love to get a place where I could have people come to me and we can just teach,
have like a little art ranch and just teach right there. Yeah, I think that would be a
lot of fun. Stan: Like a week-long workshop or something?
Aaron: Yeah, yeah. So we have a little school building in the back where we could have digital
classes, traditional classes, all that. So that's kind of one of our long term goals
for our business, that's it. Stan: Cool, thank you very much, guys. Where
did they find your stuff? Aaron: Oh, so you can see - if you're on social
media all of my stuff is @AaronBlaiseArt, that's all on Twitter and YouTube and Instagram and
then my Website is creatureartteacher.com so go check that out.
Stan: Got a lot of good courses. Aaron: Yeah lots of, yeah lots of courses-
Stan: Animation, a lot of animal drawing courses. Aaron: Animal drawing courses, animation character
design, storyboard, story writing, um, some painting courses in there. So there's you
know, just go check it out it's really cool. Stan: And it's really cheap.
Aaron: Yeah, it is cheap. Stan: Well go check them out, and if you wanna
watch that lion demo proko.com/blaise. Aaron: Yeah, it's gonna be cool, check it out!
