Don Shank is an Annie and Emmy awards winning animator. Pleasantly planted in California, he is currently working at Pixar Animation Studios. Shank studied animation at the renowned CalArts. Whose alumni include fellow Pixar patriots, John Lasseter, Brad Bird, and Pete Docter, to name but a few.
After university, Shank worked at a variety of studios including Nickelodeon Animation Studio, where he worked as a layout artist on the groundbreaking Ren & Stimpy Show, Cartoon Network Studios and later, Hanna-Barbera Productions where he worked as a storyboard artist on Genndy Tartakovsky’s Dexter’s Lab and Samurai Jack as well as Craig McCracken’s Powerpuff Girls. Shank also wrote for Samurai Jack, Powerpuff Girls and The Powerpuff Girls Movie.
Around 2004 Shank made the jump into feature films, joining Pixar, aiding them with the visual development of The Incredibles. He has since worked as an environment and production artist on two of the most stunning of all the Pixar movies, Ratatouille and Up. More recent projects include the runaway box-office success, Inside Out and the upcoming, Finding Dory.
Shank is an incredibly skilled draftsman and painter, as such, he enjoys experimenting with different styles, mediums and techniques. Shank’s personal work is very influenced by Cubism, especially the artist Pablo Picasso. A few years ago, about a year after the launch of the first iPad, Shank made the news for the beautiful paintings he was creating with the Brushes app. Which I assure you was a very novel concept at the time and had people perplexed by the implications.
Be sure to see more of Don Shank’s work on his website and follow him on Instagram.
