Nature lover This Los Angeles-based artist invites us into her book-laden studio, where cuddly beasts and lots of wall art spark creativity
-
Let me first say that everything you see here is a lie – this is the absolute cleanest my studio has ever been or ever will be. However, what I lack in physical organisation, I try to make up in time management.
I’ve been an in-house visual development artist at Dreamworks Animation TV on a Guillermo del Toro project for the past two years, and time for personal work or freelance in my home studio is limited. I tend to get up between 5 and 6am every day and aim to get two solid hours in, before heading into the office. I know that I must seem like an alien for being such an early bird rather than the typical creative night owl, but I’ve found that those focused morning hours buy me much more productivity than two strained hours after a full day at work.
Living in southern California is such a doubled-edged sword because – hooray! – the weather is almost always beautiful and sunny. However, that means that if I’m working on a
What I lack in physical organisation, I try to make up in time management
weekend I end up staring longingly out my window, wishing I could be outside soaking up some vitamin D.
TAKING NATURE CAPTIVE
Something that’s helped me with this struggle is getting into houseplants. I love my giant Monstera deliciosa, and keep picking up random succulents every time I go to the grocery store. Taking a bit of nature captive has made a huge difference. That, and taking breaks to actually go outdoors to walk my dog Kobie.
I work on a 24-inch Wacom Cintiq Pro and a 27-inch imac. I’ve experimented with a few mobile setups over the years to help solve my restlessness, but ultimately have found that nothing really replaces my large, desktop Cintiq. I did buy the base model ipad last summer once Apple introduced Pencil to the cheaper, nonpro model, and working in Procreate has been a great tool for early concept sketches and life drawing and painting. I also invested in a Jarvis standing desk, which helps with occasional low back pain and antsy feet.
What probably overruns my office more than anything else is books. I kept telling myself, “There’s no more shelf space!” Instead, I bought a new book case. My initial addiction was the ‘art of’ books put out by big animation studios. Then I discovered European comics, and then the US publishing industry also had a boom in graphic novels. Not to mention all of my old sketchbooks. At this rate I’ll have to get a second office just for books!
Betsy is a writer and illustrator for the publishing and animation industries based in Burbank, California. She’s worked with companies such as Dreamworks, Paramount, Sony, Nickelodeon, Mattel and Google, to name a few. There’s more of her art at www.betsybauerart.com.
Often, if I’m not sure what to draw, I draw a tiger. The contrast in their fur pattern makes them an interesting subject to explore. Here, I’m working on a piece for an upcoming Game of Thrones tribute show with Spoke Art. The Stark women are some of my favourite characters.
I share my office space with my boyfriend Eric. He’s a big art collector and movie buff, so he makes me look like I have better taste than I actually do! Unique lighting, monsters, kids and forests are some of my favourite topics to paint, and I combined all three in this image for an extra-curricular work project with some old coworkers.
This is a version of a character that I developed for a graphic novel story. I’m hoping we all get to see more of her soon – stay tuned. My messy, messy book case. I really need to organise this. Over on the left are some old sketchbooks that I’ve managed to archive in Itoya Art Portfolios. To the right is a portion of my ever-growing collection of art books with a few collector’s toys up top! Okay, full disclosure, these belong to my boyfriend’s, but I love them. We’re both fans of the Tiki aesthetic, and displaying these mugs has been a neat way to make the office feel fun and tropical. One of our favourite Sunday spots is happy hour at a local Tiki bar/steak house that’s been around for over 50 years!
My first job in LA was at Paramount on a movie called Wonder Park. It was finally released this year, and I was delighted to find that a few of the things I designed for the film had been turned into toys. I can’t get over how cool it is to buy something at the store and hold in my hand when it was once just an idea in my head. Reading children’s books was something that sparked my creativity early on, and I’m still an avid reader! My cat Pumpkin was by my side for 16 years, and passed away about seven years ago. She was such a sweet kitty. I keep her ashes at my desk – in a way she’s still with me, inspiring me to draw. This is Eric’s desk, where he often catalogues and archives WWII photos he finds on ebay. The art on the walls is a mix, featuring work by Nicole Gustaffson and Tyler Stout. The Star Wars helmet came with the purchase of a car.
I recently came across this very early childhood drawing of Kermit the Frog. The shapes are so good that I think sometimes we make freer and more interesting decisions when we’re kids. I like keeping a tin of Altoids at my desk. I don’t know why, but if I’m having a hard time focusing, sometimes eating a “curiously strong” mint helps reset my brain. This is my Wacom Cintiq Pro 24-inch and 27-inch Apple imac. I recently upgraded both of these from the Wacom Mobile Studio pro. I thought the MSP was a great machine, but I just missed the extra screen space and the Mac OS. Fellow Dreamworker David Depasquale made these incredible tiger darumas last autumn and I couldn’t help but buy one. This little buddy is keeping me honest for a long-term art project I’m going to finish one of these days! For a very long time I never trusted myself to keep a real plant alive, so I have a couple of fake plastic Ikea plants around to add a touch of green. I have since become a more responsible adult and upgraded to the real thing! Here’s just a tiny snippet of my overly stuffed bookcase. Favourites include my French/spanish comics by Kerascoët, Manu Arenas and Enrique Fernandez. Some of the picture books you see, like the Lion King book, literally came from my childhood bedroom. I went to Japan for my 30th birthday and had to visit the Studio Ghibli Museum. I couldn’t leave without buying something, and this soot sprite was the perfect stowaway. I pay for an annual membership to the LA zoo in the hope that I’ll go there for regular sketching sessions, and rarely do I make it more than once a year. At least I’m sent get these cute stuffed toys as a free gift! I decided to buy a nice camera before I took my last couple of trips, and so far my Fujifilm XT-1 has been to Ireland and Japan. Photography is a fun hobby: I can make an appealing composition with just the push of a button. I adopted my boxer-mix Kobie when I was just out of college, and he’s now lived in three different US states, at least half a dozen apartments/houses, and has been inside companies like Google, Paramount and Dreamworks. He’s been a constant companion for the past (almost) eight years, and I couldn’t ask for a better work buddy!