Jake Parker: Mormon Artist
Jake Parker is an illustrator who has worked on feature films such as Epic, Rio, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and Horton Hears a Who! (all with Blue Sky Studios) and has published picture books such as The Little Snowplow, Rocket Raccoon, The Tooth Fairy Wars, The Girl Who Wouldn’t Brush Her Hair, The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, the Missile Mouse graphic novel series, and three volumes in the Flight series. His comic “Little Bot and the Sparrow” was inspired by the Calvin and Hobbes comic series and became his seventh children’s book (2016).
Parker is the cofounder and contributor of the illustration education website, www.svslearn.com. He is also the founder of Inktober, a popular celebration of ink drawing that began in October 2009. He started the challenge to encourage artists, including himself, to create an ink drawing each day in October. In 2015, over 1 million Inktober drawings were posted on Instagram. He also created World Art Drop Day (each first Tuesday of September).
He has worked as an adjunct and visiting professor at Brigham Young University and as an artist at Imagine Learning in Provo, Utah.
Parker is from Mesa, Arizona, and works out of his studio in Utah where he lives with his wife and children. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
