Featured Artist: Nello Williams
Title:
Hallmark Artist
Started at Hallmark:
July 1995
Started at Keepsakes:
July 1995
Hometown:
Safford, Arizona
.
Since joining the Keepsake Studio in 1995, Nello Williams has drawn inspiration from pop culture, classic film and Americana, and Disney. Nello’s 2018 ornaments all have a fun sense of nostalgia, and two incorporate his biggest inspiration of all: music.
Nello Williams grew up drawing anytime, anyplace, even in school—and not just in art class. His class notes ended up looking more like artwork than a study sheet.
The young artist started out sculpting the ships and robots from the television program Lost in Space. Once, he saw a scary dungeon set advertised in a comic book, but like most kids, couldn’t afford to buy it. So Nello recreated the toy instead.
Popular culture kept on inspiring Nello’s art. In high school, he and a friend made masks of characters from Planet of the Apes—a big movie of the day. Now he keeps up on the latest trends for his creations in Keepsake Ornaments.
Nello spends much of his outside time nurturing one of his other big interests—music. He designed the album covers (wishful thinking) and T-shirts for his high school garage band. He even designed a guitar for himself, and twenty years later, he actually built it! Nello sees guitar design as a place where his two great loves, sculpture and music, meet.
Artist Journal: Ken Crow
Monday, April 30, 2018
“When I first get started on a new idea, I close my eyes, dream, and start sketching with a pencil and a piece of paper. I am a perpetual doodler. My original concept drawings are about three inches tall and are very simple. I will make one after another until something goes “click” in my mind. I use my cell phone to take pictures of things that inspire me, and then use a computer to put it all together with many different computer programs.
Santa’s Magic Train
I have so many great idea starters that come from great moments throughout my life—every day has a fun idea in it. Because of that, my inspiration usually comes from happy times with my family and friends. My style is typically happy, toy-like and mechanical.
I am very fortunate because I love what I do. I get to make people happy with artistic and mechanical abilities that are magnified through Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments.”
Artist Sketchbook: Jake Angell
Child’s Year Series
Hallmark Artist Jake Angell shares some of the digital 3D renderings he did for his Child’s Year series (2015-2017).
I Am One!
I Am Two!
Digital 3D renderings
I Am Three!
I Am Four!
I Am Five!
With a Little Help from His Kids
“I’ve got the children’s line of one through five coming out. I’ve got a six and an eight-year-old. They actually helped me on one of them. They helped me with the number four, that’s a little tiger with an easel drawing on it. They actually did the A B & C for me that I incorporated into it. So this one’s kinda special because this whole line is one that I kind of designed and came up with and was just happy to see something of my own, that is really my own very creation, from the beginning, to be out there.”
– Jake Angell (2015)
Concept sketches for a Child’s Age collection that wasn’t produced.
Facebook Live Artist Chat
To celebrate the 2018 Dream Book’s online launch, Hallmark will be hosting a Live Artist Chat with Keepsake Artists Anita Marra Rogers and Nina Aubé.
Anita Marra Rogers
Nina Aubé
Location: Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments Facebook page
Date: Thursday, April 19, 2018
Time: from 11:00 a.m. CDT
To participate simply set up a facebook account and click on the Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments Facebook page link on April 19th from 11:00 a.m. CDT
Q&A: Tracy Larsen
Keepsake Artist Tracy Larsen was asked to give a little more background on some of his ornaments coming out later this year. Here’s what he had to say!
Flight of Fancy
Tracy: A few years ago, at a Christmas party gathering for the Keepsakes studio artists, we created robots out of a bunch of found objects that we brought to the party. The end result of the ones I created had a definite “steampunk” feel to them that I really liked and I thought that at some point, with the right project, it would be fun to do a steampunk ornament. When I got the chance to do a Santa in a hot air balloon I thought, “This is the one.” I researched different steampunk styles, flying machines, engines, clothing, etc. and started to sketch some ideas that the team was enthusiastic about. I like the use of different metals that I found in my research, along with boilers, goggles, steam whistles and a multitude of other items. I combined as many elements as I could, added some light effects, and ended up with one of my favorite ornaments that I’ve had the pleasure to work on in my 22+ years in Keepsake Ornaments.
Flight of Fancy
Tracy: We did some really fun lighting effects on some recent Frosty Friends pieces and I was looking for other ways to implement a similar effect in one of my ornaments. Of course, it has to be the right situation. Fortunately, I found it with Flight of Fancy. The question was how to show it off well. I decided to keep part of the balloon opaque and then let the light show through the other quarter pieces. I was also able to get a couple of flickering lights in the exhaust and in the boiler to simulate the fire aspect of a steam engine. As we got samples back from the manufacturing vendor, we made a few tweaks and adjustments so that the effect would be as good as possible.
Low N’ Sno Lowrider
Tracy: I love cars and the art that is involved in car design. I admit that though I was somewhat familiar with the “lowrider” car culture, I didn’t know much of the details or the language associated with it. It was a great experience to have the chance to actually sit down with Joe Ray and learn from one of the culture’s biggest proponents. In our conversations he would suggest elements found on lowriders that would be a good fit for certain styles of cars. For the 50s-style car that we use in 2018, he suggested headlight “eyelids,” a side window air conditioning tube, and of course, the shiny metallic lowrider plaque, among other elements. We discussed what colors might look best for that particular car and what kind of paint design would look good. He came up with the icicle scallops, which work perfectly for the lowrider snowman driving the car. It was a fun collaboration that definitely has Joe’s fingerprints on it.
Old World Santa
Tracy: The original sketch that inspired Old World Santa was actually of Santa as a nutcracker, done years ago. When I was asked if I’d be interested in doing a Santa for the premium line, I rummaged through some old sketches, made some modifications on the nutcracker Santa sketch, and added some mixed materials like crystals, a bottle brush tree and fur. We keep favorite old sketches around, just in case the right situation arises, and we can dust them off and use them.
Old World Santa
Tracy: I loved working on the Old World Santa because there is so much more I could do with it in premium materials. I had the green light to use porcelain with various mixed materials that I often don’t get to use. I have often teased Joanne Eschrich that she doesn’t leave any of the rest of us the chance to include attachments on our ornaments because she uses them all on her Father Christmas series. She may have suggested that I be given the premium Santa just to serve me right for complaining! It was a challenge, because I wanted it to be special, but it was definitely worthwhile. Hopefully, it will be an ornament that the collectors will enjoy as much as I have enjoyed creating it.