Art of Happy Childhood by Pascal Campion

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older. Tom Stoppard

Continuing the set of inspiring stories about well-known masters of art and design, today we are going to introduce here the artist whose creative outcome is full of incredible warmth and light, optimism and lust of life. His style is now recognized immediately and day by day he adds his great skills of seeing and showing magic in usual, sometimes the simplest moments of everyday life to the variety of modern art. So, let’s get to know a bit more about Pascal Campion, the famous French-American illustrator and visual development artist.

The lesson

Biography and background

As it is stated in the artist’s biography presented on his official website, Pascal Campion was born in River Edge, New Jersey and began his art career at a very young age of seven when his older brother Sean, gave him the task of “copying” comic books covers in exchange for Pascal to read the comics! At the age of three, his family relocated back to the south of France, where he spent hours sketching and drawing both comics and the beautiful landscapes of Provence. In 1998 Pascal began his studying narrative illustration at Arts Decoratifs de Strasbourg, in France. His formal training emphasized storytelling through art, and also happened to be the last class that was taught without computers. A year-long study abroad in Boston at Tom Snyder Productions cemented Pascal’s goals and determined the US as the place to establish his professional artist career. After graduating in 2000 from the Arts Decoratifs de Strasbourg with a diploma in Narrative Illustration, Pascal’s brother Sean built him a new tool: a computer. It was the beginning of a new form of art for Pascal and a digital artist was born.

In 2001, the appeal of paradise combined with employment took him to Honolulu, Hawaii where he worked at PREL developing online educational games. In 2002, he joined the start-up studio, Bent Image Labs, in Portland Oregon. Here Pascal honed skills as a commercial 2D artist and then becoming a commercial director and collaborated on campaigns for clients such as Ritz Crackers and Reese’s Pieces. The productions were always fast-paced and Pascal thrived in the environment, further mastering his stills in speed sketching as well as creating many personal animation works.

In 2005 Pascal moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to be a Senior Visual Artist for Leapfrog where he was responsible for the creation of many Leapfrog characters, storylines and game development for LeapFrog and its partners.  In May of 2007 Pascal married in San Francisco and in 2008 their first child, Lily was born. His intense passion for his family thus began and he has been carrying that flame and inspiration in his work and has become one of his hallmarks. In 2006 Pascal began to truly develop his own art and style, but lacking time due to his full-time job, he had to come up with an efficient solution. It was then that “Sketch of the Day” was born: every morning, first thing, he creates a sketch, albeit full color, and a story unto itself. This routine has yielded an archive of close to 3,000 sketches and over 30,000 organic Facebook followers and growing numbers on Tumblr, Twitter, DeviantArt, and Pinterest.

As a freelance artist since 2007 Pascal has worn many hats in the art world; from conceptual design to visual development for feature films and television; to creating commercial animation for clients such as Chevron and Disney; as well participating in DeepGreen movie. Today, his current list of clients includes: Dreamworks Animation, Paramount Pictures, Disney Feature, Disney Toons, Bent Image Labs, Cartoon Network, Hulu, They Might Be Giants, Insignia Worldwide, BRC Animation Arts and PBS. He is represented by Shannon Associates in the field of publishing.

His works of art are easily transformed into a bright and unique life story showing the variety of details we forget to notice in our common race for happiness. Every illustration by this artist makes us stop, take a deep breath and realize that the happiness we are running for so wildly is around us, in simple yet irreplaceable things: in hugs and smiles from those who we love, in the beauty of nature and deepness of the sky. Today we are going to look at a tiny part of his huge collection of artworks, and it’s going to be focused on the most prominent days of a lifetime, the childhood, when colors are brighter, the sun is warmer, trees are higher, all the problems are absolutely serious while the moments of happiness are totally unforgettable. Let’s get inspired via his art teaching us to see the beauty, fun, happiness and magic every day of our lives.

Artworks gallery: the magic of childhood painted by Pascal Campion

Big Talks

Running High

Sometimes all you need is tree

The long way to school

BFF

Winter Crush

The miraculous candy corn fishing trip

Zuma Beach

High Five

Quick Jog

Wakeup Call

Early Spring in So Cal

All in the family

To all the fathers out there

Singi in the shower

The little peaks

Don’t worry

Bath Tubbing

CRUNNNNNNCH!

The great outside!

Early weekend

Colder Weather

The river, Charlie and me

I love you Daddy

Think fast

Night Boat

Picking berries

Tick… Tock…

My baby for ever

That one day when it was all perfect

Once, they were young

Pergola

Ninja

Full Throttle

Random Morningness

Today

Drop off

The portrait

Art Lessons

Another one of those rainy mornings

Rain Walk

Sunday Market

Definitely… Summer time

Catching up

Personal Guard

Protected

What do you think Mister Snuffles…

Some things never get old

Certainly, this is only a small part of incredibly fruitful and constantly growing collection of artworks by Pascal Campion: sometimes it seems that he never misses any moment of life without sketching it. Still, even this set of paintings can make the viewers full of warm inner light and absolute cheerfulness coming out from every pic. Not only has this artist kept the best vibes of childhood in his heart, but also generously shared them with the world through his sophisticated illustrations.

Get inspired and don’t miss new prominent figures of modern art.

Review the big collection of summer illustrations by Pascal Campion

Pascal Campion’s official website
Pascal Campion on Facebook and DeviantArt

Check more illustration collections and D4U Inspiration posts