Barry R. Kooser is an American artist, painter, and educator who worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios between 1992 and 2003 as a

background artist A background artist or sometimes called a background stylist or background painter is one who is involved in the process of animation who establishes the color, style, and mood of a scene drawn by an animation layout artist. The methods used can e ...

on films such as ''

The Lion King ''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 32nd Disney animated feature film and the fifth produced during the Disney Renaissance, it ...

'', ''

Pocahontas Pocahontas (, ; born Amonute, known as Matoaka, 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman, belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of ...

'', ''

Mulan Hua Mulan () is a legendary folk heroine from the Northern and Southern dynasties era (4th to 6th century CE) of Chinese history. According to legend, Mulan took her aged father's place in the conscription for the army by disguising herself as ...

'', ''

Lilo & Stitch ''Lilo & Stitch'' is a 2002 American animated science fiction comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 42nd Disney animated feature film, it was written and directed by Chris Sande ...

'', and as background supervisor on ''

Brother Bear ''Brother Bear'' is a 2003 American animated musical fantasy comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 44th Disney animated feature film, it was directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Wa ...

''. After leaving Disney, he worked independently as a painter exhibiting and selling fine art in galleries around the US. While teaching animation and story-boarding at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, he met

Worker Studio Worker Studio is an American animation and visual effects company based in Centennial, Colorado, founded in 2009 by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot. The company has provided visual effects for a number of short films including Angela Bettis, Angela Bet ...

founder

Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot (born 1972, Aurora, Colorado) is a Film director, director, animator and has held a variety of roles as a Visual effects, visual effects artist in major Cinema of the United States, Hollywood films. Since 1996, Hemschoo ...

, and became a partner at the Colorado animation studio. Barry has since left Worker Studio. He is the Founder, Executive Producer and Director at Many Hoops Productions.

Early life and education

Born in

Wheat Ridge, Colorado The City of Wheat Ridge is a home rule municipality located in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Wheat Ridge is located immediately west of Denver and is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. The ...

, Kooser grew up in the neighboring city of

Arvada Arvada () is a home rule municipality located in Jefferson and Adams counties, Colorado, United States. The city population was 124,402 at the 2020 United States Census, with 121,510 residing in Jefferson County and 2,892 residing in Adams Cou ...

, where he graduated from

Arvada West High School Arvada West High School, nicknamed A-West, is a public secondary school in Arvada, Colorado, United States. Opened in 1963, it is one of four high schools in Arvada. It is part of the Jefferson County School District. History Arvada West High ...

in 1987. He received a

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

in Illustration from

Kansas City Art Institute The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is a private art school in Kansas City, Missouri. The college was founded in 1885 and is an accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and Higher Learning Commission. It has approxi ...

in 1991. After a summer internship at Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios in Orlando, Florida, Kooser was hired at the studio as a background artist.

Influences

Early artistic influences include: Illustrators Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Dean Cornwell and Mark English. Fine Art Painting influences include: Edgar Payne, Joaquin Sorolla, John Singer Sargent and Richard Diebenkorn. Noting his film influences in an article, Kooser selected 5 production designs that continue to inspire him creatively. The selections include

Disney's The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Lady and the Tramp ''Lady and the Tramp'' is a 1955 American animated musical romance film produced by Walt Disney and released by Buena Vista Film Distribution. The 15th Disney animated feature film, it was directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hami ...

'',

Tyrus Wong Tyrus Wong (October 25, 1910 – December 30, 2016) was a Chinese-born American artist. He was a painter, animator, calligrapher, muralist, ceramicist, lithographer and kite maker, as well as a set designer and storyboard artist. One of the mo ...

's work on ''

Bambi ''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten. ...

'', Dennis Gassner and Richard L. Johnson's work on ''

Road to Perdition ''Road to Perdition'' is a 2002 American crime drama film directed by Sam Mendes. The screenplay was adapted by David Self from the graphic novel of the same name written by Max Allan Collins and illustrated by Richard Piers Rayner. The film s ...

'',

Ralph McQuarrie Ralph Angus McQuarrie (; June 13, 1929 – March 3, 2012) was an American conceptual designer and illustrator. His career included work on the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy, the original ''Battlestar Galactica'' television series, the film '' ...

's work on ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'', and Dean Mitzner's work on ''

Tron ''Tron'' (stylized as ''TRON'') is a 1982 American science fiction action-adventure film written and directed by Steven Lisberger from a story by Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird. The film stars Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer a ...

''.

Disney years

Kooser's first film at

Disney Animation Studios The Walt Disney Company has owned and operated several animation studios since the company's founding on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio; the current Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, Ca ...

was as an in between artist on the Roger Rabbit animated short, ''

Trail Mix-Up The ''Roger Rabbit'' shorts are a series of animated short films produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation from 1989 to 1993. The anthology features Roger Rabbit, the animated protagonist from ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', being enlisted the task o ...

'' in 1993. He continued to work as a background artist on projects at Disney's Orland, Florida Studio, including the features ''

'', ''

'', and ''

''. In 2001, as background supervisor on ''

'', Kooser and his team traveled to

Jackson Hole, Wyoming Jackson Hole (originally called Jackson's Hole by mountain men) is a valley between the Gros Ventre and Teton mountain ranges in the U.S. state of Wyoming, near the border with Idaho, in Teton County, one of the richest counties in the Unite ...

and studied with Western landscape painter Scott Christensen, where they learned to: "simplify objects by getting the spatial dimensions to work first and working in the detail later."

Filmography

References

External links

* * Barry Kooser on Panel at 2013 Denver Comic Con �
Denver Comic Con 2013: So You Wanna Be a Concept Artist
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kooser, Barry Living people American animators Computer animation people Background artists American art directors Walt Disney Animation Studios people 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century male artists American landscape painters Painters from Colorado Artists from Colorado Kansas City Art Institute alumni 1968 births

Early life and education

Influences

Disney years

Filmography

See also

References

External links