From Illustration & Animation to the Stage: How Technology has Changed Image-Making

John Sullivan, a former art teacher, animator, set designer, and member of the Turner Pictures/ 20th Century Fox staff which in 1994 created the animated feature, The Pagemaster, will discuss and demonstrate how technology has changed the craft of animation and visual arts. An inductee in the National Teacher’s Hall of Fame in 2004, John will present at the August 7, 2015 First Friday breakfast of the Cape Cod Technology Council.   The breakfast will be held from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. at the Hyannis Golf Club on Route 132, Hyannis. The event is open to the public.

His talk will focus on how he and others in the field of visual arts have adjusted to the “modern world” of technology in creating their images and will present examples to show the dramatic change. “When I got my first computer in 1984, little did I realize how quickly it would replace many of my art techniques that I had used,” he explained. “As technology developed even further, I finally put away my graph paper, Rubylith, sheets of Letraset, and my burnishing tool, my collection of Rapidigraph pens and points, my paints and brushes and turned toward the computer to create. I have never given up my #2 Ticonderoga pencil and a piece of paper, because there is nothing on this earth that can replace them.”

Technology has changed the way artists and animators paint, illustrate, animate characters, and design sets and costumes for Theater. John says technology has improved the creative process by giving the artist tools to create what he or she can imagine but now with much less stress and time.

John was an art teacher at Barnstable High School for 33 years, teaching a wide variety of subjects including fine arts, cartooning and animation, sculpture, ceramics, arts and crafts, illustration, graphic arts, and theater. He served as director for the award-winning Barnstable High School Drama Club, which Stage Directions Magazine voted Best in the Northeast and one of the five best in the country. His club was also chosen out of 20,000 schools by Warner Brothers Studios to produce the first original online series called “High Drama” which earned an A+ from Entertainment Weekly.

John has a Master’s Degree in Education and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. He also studied film with the British Film Institute at the University of Sterling in Scotland and studied animation at the California Institute for the Arts. Since retiring in 2012, he has been working on a project, Quahog Corner, a show that entertains and helps children learn to draw. Now working out of an office at the Cape Cod Community Media Center in Dennisport, his work for the show has earned two Regional Emmy nominations.

The CCTC event includes networking and a hot breakfast followed by the presentation and questions and answers. The charge for CCTC members is $15, while there is a $20 charge for non-members.