Like many of the other teachers at Art One, art has always been a huge part of John’s life starting at a very early age. He grew up on the 80′s cartoons that many may remember like Inspector Gadget, He-man, Transformers, My Pet Monster etc… and most days it was difficult to pull him away. Eventually John would start his path towards the arts like many of the students here at Art One will hopefully undertake.

He auditioned for an art school (Claude Watson) in grade 3, was accepted and eventually stayed in a creative, art-focused environment well into his college years. During this period John was fine tuning his craft, majored in visual art and eventually ended up at Sheridan and The Art Institute of Toronto. After post secondary education he majored first in Classical Animation and then Video Game Art and Design.

At The Art Institute of Toronto is where he also discovered his love for teaching. It was here that he was asked by one of his professors, Rowena Cruz (a dedicated artist in her own right who worked at many animation companies including Nelvana) to be her Teaching Assistant. As a TA John helped teach “Character Design” and “Principles of Animation” with college level students. John would go about and help students one on one in class, after school tutoring, grade art assignments, essays and tests. It became apparent to him that someday he would love the chance to teach his craft. He is very happy to be a teacher now at Art One Academy.

John is still quite active in the Video Games industry as he still works freelance on top of his Art One duties. For several years now John has worked as a BG Painter, User Interface Artist, 2D Generalist and Designer in both the Animation Industry and in the Games Industry. His career so far has allowed him to work on some really fun games like Super Monkey Ball 2, CSI:Unsolved, X-Men, Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, Geomon and X-Men Destinies.

John loves cartooning in all its forms, from comics to anime, and is enthusiastic to share his experience and knowledge of the art involved, and of the industry itself, to all his students.