Jimmy Pickering
Jimmy Pickering
Award-winning illustrator, author, artist
Jimmy Pickering is a renowned and beloved artist and designer across the fields of fine art, illustration, and book publishing. He has also created dozens of projects for theme parks and resorts around the world as a creative leader at Walt Disney Imagineering and Universal Creative.
Pickering was accepted into the school of animation at California Institute of the Arts at the age of just seventeen, where he studied under legendary Disney animation talents Hal Ambro, Bob McCrae, Chris Buck, and Joe Ranft, among others; learning the art of animation and the skills of visual storytelling through design and color—two elements that remain fundamental to his style.
At Imagineering, Jimmy was mentored by the legendary Leota Toombs Thomas, who not only broadened his skills, but instilled important design philosophies set forth by Walt Disney for his original WED Imagineers. Jimmy later became an art director and production designer for Universal Creative, leading a design team that won two "Best Attraction" Themed Entertainment Association Awards; "Men in Black: Alien Attack," a 70,000 square foot attraction at Universal Studios Florida, and "Templo Del Fuego," the largest indoor fire effects attraction in Europe at PortAventura, Spain.
Since then, Jimmy has struck out on his own, telling stories through fine art and publishing. As an author and illustrator, Jimmy's work has graced more than forty children's books, his illustrations have won prestigious awards (including Illustrator of the Year), and his fine art has been exhibited at the Armand Hammer Museum of Art in Los Angeles, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and The Canadian Center of Architecture in Montreal.
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