Illustration

David Vargo has an intense love of the mysterious. From an early age his art sought to transcend realism to the realms of the imaginary. After service to his country in the US Marine Corps as an Infantryman, David enrolled in art school. He earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Illustration from the Laguna College of Art and Design. Soon after he decided to take his education further and earned a Masters of Fine Arts in Illustration from California State University at Long Beach. His Illustration medium of choice is Oil, Acrylic and sometimes digital paint. David has painted Illustrations for companies like Blizzard Entertainment, Lucasfilm, Lord of the Rings and Wizards of the Coast. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Illustration at the Laguna College of Art and Design. David’s love of the mysterious, combined with his passion for the figure has led to a long term art affair with Imaginative Realism.

Jason Dowd has been a professional freelance illustrator and fine artist for over thirty years. His clients include Simon & Schuster, Scholastic, UCI, Anheuser-Busch, and Chase Bank, among others. Most recently, he has completed sixty full color illustrations for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which will appear in 2025 for the 125th anniversary. In 2019, he received a commission from a UCI astrophysicist to illustrate the future
capabilities of the James Webb telescope. The digital diagram produced was needed as a visual presentation tool for NASA, to show how deep into space the telescope would actually see. Jason graduated with distinction from Art Center College of Design in 1990, majoring in Illustration. In 2006, he and his family moved from the Midwest to
Orange County, CA. In 2007, former LCAD President Jonathan Burke hired Jason as an Adjunct Faculty at LCAD, where he has been teaching talented and inspired students for fifteen years.

Taylor Glenn is an interdisciplinary artist, illustrator, designer, and writer working in California
and Maine. As an alumna of the Graphic Design and Digital Media with Illustration Emphasis
program at LCAD, she specialized in creating accessible branding identities for people with
physical and cognitive uniquenesses and creating systems focused on sustainability and
ecological preservation. Taylor’s work always has a strong foundation of research and
conceptual depth. She has worked with companies like RipCurl, Element Skateboards, and
Quokka Brew. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States.
Also, her poetry was published in the Chiron Review. Taylor is earning her MFA in Studio Art
from Maine College of Art & Design, mainly focusing on themes of abandonment and
relationships through textiles, found objects, installation, and sculpture.

World-renowned sports artist, Dave Hobrecht is collected by art patrons across the globe. He is known for his classic, yet innovative black and white sports paintings, dramatic sports subjects, and masterful technique.

Matthew James-Wilson is the founder of Heavy Manners Library, an art space in Los Angeles’ Echo Park. From 2012 to 2018, he ran the online art magazine FORGE. James-Wilson has curated art exhibits, worked for various independent record labels, and written for publications including Pitchfork and VICE. Matthew James-Wilson was born in Toronto, CA and grew up in New York before relocating to Los Angeles, CA in 2018.

Quinne Larsen is a Chinook cartoonist living in Los Angeles. They’ve worked as a storyboard artist for Sony Pictures, Cartoon Network, and Netflix, among others. They were a 2023 Sundance Native Labs fellow. They’re currently completing an original graphic novel for First Second Publishing.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Kristen Liu-Wong attended Pratt Institute where she
graduated with a BFA in Illustration. She has shown extensively in numerous galleries both
domestically and abroad and in addition to her gallery practice, she has worked with an
extensive range of clients on projects ranging from murals to editorial illustrations to clothing lines. Kristen now lives and works in Los Angeles.

Mark Pacella has been drawing for the communication arts since the age of 9. Working in publishing as an Editorial illustrator for clients such as The New York Times, The National Law Journal, Notre Dame Magazine etc, he eventually went on to work at Heavy Metal magazine/Marvel comics/DC and Image comics etc.

Tired of shoveling snow, he eventually relocated to sunny California where he worked in animation for a short time for Hanna Barberra etc. before embarking on his storyboard career for commercials and film, where he currently enjoys a rich diversity of material to apply himself in the service of helping to tell cool stories.

Christopher Ramsey is currently based in Orange County. He works with both Illustration and Fine Art techniques in his professional work. Christopher is passionate about figurative and landscape works and uses these elements in his paintings and illustration. His recent works include a Second Place award for the Tustin Plein-air Competition in October 2023.

Jamie Stark is a design and branding consultant. A native New Yorker, Jamie, holds a BA from Fordham University and studied fine art at The Art Students League of NY. Jamie worked at a number of design studios and advertising agencies in NYC. Ultimately, he founded his own firm with offices in NYC and NJ with several employees that provided design and branding to a number of Fortune 500 clients. In 2013, in search of a better lifestyle, he came to California and set up as an individual practitioner. Along with teaching at LCAD, Jamie maintains a design practice creating packaging, branding, and design for a variety of clients in different industries. He also currently consults with several LA-based advertising agencies designing key art and title treatments for the entertainment industry. He has worked on projects for Warner Bros, Disney, HBO, Lionsgate, Netflix, Amazon, and AMC. He has won design awards for his work from Graphis, Graphic Design USA, Adobe, AIGA, Logo Lounge, and others. Jamie has a deep and abiding love of typography that he brings to every project and most particularly to the classes he teaches at LCAD.

Larry Taugher has been a freelance illustrator and exhibiting fine artist since graduating from Ohio University in 1980 with an MFA, he is proficient in commercial illustration as well as fine art production. His professional illustration career encompasses many diverse categories which span from entertainment art to commercial illustration. Commercial Client list includes companies such as Mattel, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, The United Nations, Jimmy Buffett Inc. Nickelodeon, Interplay, Target, Hansons, etc. He has been represented by galleries in Beverly Hills, Toronto, Portland and Bethesda Maryland, and has sold his Fine artwork throughout his career, the most notable clients include: Johnny Carson, Mary Hartman (entertainment tonight), Wayne Newton and Producer George Green. He was also an exhibitor at the Laguna festival of fine arts from 1989 to 1992.

He has been an adjunct professor in the illustration Department at LCAD since 2001 and teachers “Color Illustration 1”.

Loveis Wise (they/them) is a Los Angeles based multidisciplinary artist, lecturer, and land steward from Washington,DC. Much of their work and living practice has a focus on creating worlds that encapsulate what it means to re-imagine our futures through playfulness, liberation, and community building. This exploration of their praxis comes from a goal of shaping change through curiosity, their interest in alchemy, and transformation through connection. Creating through their distinctly recognizable style and palette, they’ve been able to offer narrative storytelling and world building through digital and traditional art making with clients ranging from Google, Apple, The New Yorker, Dr. Martens, Häagen-Dazs and more.

Mark Zoeller is a veteran entertainment industry artist who has a long affiliation with film and television, being awarded two Emmy Awards in Outstanding Achievement in Animation, Storyboarding. Hes worked for all the major studios, Warner Bros., Disney, DreamWorks SKG, Fox, Marvel, and Technicolor to name a few. During his time at LCAD, Mark has taught a spectrum of classes including storyboarding, visual storytelling, background layout design, character design, Photoshop and advanced Photoshop and figure drawing. Other classes he has taught at other universities include animation pre-production, storyboarding, illustration, and drawing. When not teaching, Mark lives and works in the heart of Hollywood.