Florian Jacot - 1st Year Painting

Florian Jacot is a figurative painter and sculptor who works traditionally and digitally in his field.

Florian started his artistic journey in fine arts graduating from the Art Diploma Program of Central Tech School and then studied at the Academy of Realist Art, school of Classical Figurative Drawing and Painting. He went on to Animation and graduated from the Classical Animation Diploma Program of Max the Mutt Animation and the Digital Animation Program at Centennial College. His work has been exhibited on many occasions in shows and galleries and has won several awards. He has worked in the Animation Industry as a 3D artist doing modeling and texturing.

Florian has been teaching since 2004 in various schools and colleges. He presently teaches Painting at Sheridan College, Artistic Anatomy, Figure Sculpture and Drawing at Centennial College, as well as Traditional and Digital Sculpture at Toronto School of Art.

Florian's Website

Tim McCormack - 3rd Year Life Drawing

Tim McCormack has been drawing ever since he can remember. His lifelong interest in landscape painting has evolved into his current images of utopian and dystopian space; an exploration of the intersection of the aesthetics of the Romantic paintings with present day visual culture. His recent work combines play and illusion in search of an expression of the sublime, in ink drawings that are distilled from scientific photographs, found textures and manga. Other sources of inspiration include the human figure, Japanese cityscapes and his favourite pens.

A graduate of OCAD he has had several solo shows of watercolours, oils and pastels. His work is found in many private collections.

Tim's website

Bruno Degazio - Music, Audio, 4th Year Mentor

Mr. Degazio's film work includes the special-effects sound design for the Oscar nominated documentary film, The Fires of Kuwait and music for the all-digital, six-channel sound tracks of the IMAX films Titanica, Flight of the Aquanaut and CyberWorld 3D.

His many concert works for traditional, electronic and mixed media have been performed through out North America and Europe.

As a researcher in the field of algorithmic composition he has presented papers and musical works at leading international conferences, including festivals in Toronto, New York City, London, The Hague, Koln, Tokyo and Hong Kong. He was a founding member of the Toronto new music ensemble SOUND PRESSURE and of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community. He has written on his research into automated composition using fractals and genetic algorithms.

Bruno Degazio is the designer of MIDIForth and The Transformation Engine, a software musical composition system with application to algorithmic composition and sonification.

Brian Hladin - 2nd Year Life Drawing

Brian Hladin is a Visual Artist and a Figure Drawing Partial Load Professor in the renowned BAA Animation and Post Graduate Digital Character Animation Programs at Sheridan College in Oakville, Canada. He also teaches Drawing based courses at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, Canada’s largest Arts University, and has taught at many other institutions including Seneca College. He comes to teaching having worked for many years as an Illustrator / Layout Artist / Art Director for numerous magazines and advertising agencies. Other work includes yearly guest lecturing at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore and visual art done for exhibition and commission.

Klaas Hart - 1st and 2nd Year Life Drawing

Klaas Hart has worked as a teacher and a fine artist for the past 16 years. He studied drawing, painting and anatomy at the Ontario College of Art and Design, graduating in 1993. He went on to study in the Netherlands, where he worked with renowned Dutch artist Henk Helmantel in 1999-2000. Along with life drawing and anatomy instruction, colour theory and painting technique are also part of his teaching repertoire.

Seeing painting as a form of traditional storytelling, his art deals with narratives that explore myth, psychology, and allegory in painting. His work has been exhibited in North America and Europe, and in 1998 he received the Mayor's Purchase Award in Toronto.

“Working with the motivated and talented students at Sheridan College is rewarding experience. It’s encouraging to be able to share my experience with students, knowing they will build on it and take it in new directions. In a world where art is becoming more difficult to define, at Sheridan we find real knowledge transfer going on that is directly applicable to an industry. In this sense art is alive and well.”

Klass's website

Maury Whyte - 1st Year Story, 4th Year Mentor

A 1977 graduate Sheridan's Classical Animation Program, Maury has experience in almost every facet of animated film production. Working as Director, Animator, Designer, Storyboard Artist and/or Writer, he has created content for more than 200 productions ranging from TV commercials to feature films. Joining Sheridan's faculty in 1988, Maury taught in both the Classical Animation Program and the International Summer School of Animation. Working as part of the team that revised Sheridan's animation curriculum when the program switched from Classical Animation diploma to the BAA - Animation.

Michael Hitchcox - 2nd Year Painting

Michael A. Hitchcox is an experienced artist in both the fine arts and commercial animation background field. Having worked for Nelvana as a background supervisor, he’s worked on over 50 animated series both traditionally and CG , including Beetlejuice, Magic School Bus, Dog City, Gargoyles, Blazing Dragons, George Shrinks, Rescue Heroes, Babar, Franklin, My Pet Monster and Care Bears.

Michael has also worked for Studio B Productions, painting colour keys for a variety of productions and was a guest background artist in 1995 and 1997 to help train artists in the BG department and helping to develop the original concept for the BG style of the God Rocks made-for-video series and other studio projects at Chelsea Roads Productions.

Michael has taught color and painting technique courses for the Con-Ed program at Sheridan College and has developed an on line Fundamental painting and Background course for WebCT, hosted by Sheridan College. At present, he is instructing background painting using both traditional and Photoshop methods for the second year BAA animation course at Sheridan.