Pascal Campion lives in California, but alert readers will note that his work, at least for this magazine, tends to capture New York in soft, wistful tones. Campion’s first two covers for The New Yorker—he made his début in January—surveyed the city from on high; his latest brings us down to the street, a silvery portrait that extends into the distance. Campion recently talked to us about the image and his work in animation.
You’ve said that this is one of your favorite images. What do you like about it?
I especially like the simplicity of it. I was trying to get an extended street perspective while keeping the subject mundane and undramatic. I like that it came off very loose, which is not always the case when I try too hard. And I’m happy with the feel and the emotion it conveys. It’s one of those times when I look at it and think to myself that I wouldn’t be able to reproduce this if I tried. Many good pictures are lucky accidents.
Are you still doing a drawing every day? How does that ritual help you?
I still do daily drawings, yes. When I started, I was aiming to last only a month or two, hoping to have enough images to collect into a book. I had no idea I was going to be doing it for around fourteen years! I recently passed the five-thousand-sketches mark, so now I’m being a little looser with the schedule.
But the drawings have brought me so much work. Early on, they got me my first break in feature animation: a director at DreamWorks saw my blog and asked if I would be interested in working on a feature. That was the beginning. Today, I would say that ninety per cent of my work comes from the blog.
Last year, you were working on the “Green Eggs and Ham” series, based on the Dr. Seuss book. What can you tell us about your work on that?
I was the art director, which meant that I set up the look and feel of the show’s entire world. The first few months of production were spent mainly on exploring shapes and lighting; we wanted strong lighting from the get-go. For each episode, and each major scene, we also produced quick color sketches that would help the art department know what look we were going for, in terms of light, the special effects, color tones on the characters, etc.
Pascal Campion’s atmospheric color keys for the TV series “Green Eggs and Ham.”
What projects are you currently working on?
I have a lot on my plate! I’m working on a few different book covers, doing some development work for a major toy company, doing visual development for two movies with studios here in L.A. Unfortunately, I can’t name any of these because of the N.D.A.s. When I work on a project, it’s usually so far ahead that, by the time it becomes public information, I’ve already moved on to other things. I’m also developing two of my own projects at the moment, which is great and new and exciting (but also scary).
For more covers about New York City in the rain, see below:
