The Pencil Pushers Podcast

We welcome illustrator, author, and ArtCenter teacher Ellen Surrey about building a hand-drawn career with a mid-century, nostalgia-soaked visual language. Surrey describes growing up in Los Angeles with her father, Disney animator Michael Surrey (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, supervising animator for Timon in The Lion King), learning characters at home, and abandoning animation after finding it tedious. A high school ArtCenter class with Martha Rich revealed modern illustration, studio life, and community, deepening Suri's love of postwar pared-down design. Influences include Mary Blair, JP Miller, and 1960s painters like Bernie Fuchs and Bob Peak. A school project became her Mid-Century Modern Women book, helping "legitimize" her; in-person portfolio meetings led to a New Yorker assignment. She illustrates Nosy Crow's This Book Will Make You an Artist (nearly two years, heavy design/rights constraints) and announces This Book Will Make You a Scientist. She discusses scheduling, promotion anxiety, using personal projects (LA icons) to land LA Times work, teaching students to limit tools/platforms, and future goals: a written-and-illustrated kids' book, vis-dev for animation, and a movie poster, fueled by a love of film like Pee-wee's Big Adventure.


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Host: Mike Rosado
Post Production: Max Trujillo (instagram.com/trujillomedia)
Sponsors: True Grit Supply

We welcome Ecuador-born, Los Angeles–based illustrator, toy maker, author, and filmmaker Chogrin, digging into a childhood marinated in American cartoons, Japanese fandom, and Latin American culture, plus early obsessions with drawing, He-Man, Turtles, Ghostbusters, fantasy films, and behind-the-scenes creature craft. Chogrin traces his path from art school in Philadelphia and a Cartoon Network internship (Class of 3000) to work on Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Big City Greens, then explains how the animation downturn and AI pressures pushed him deeper into freelance and indie animation. He breaks down directing Lucky Brave Sunshine with an Ecuadorian studio funded by a government grant, the festival "pay to play" reality, and his next short, Sector 1218, backed by a GoFundMe. He also describes designing toys, Guillermo del Toro buying his work, visiting del Toro's collection, and argues for transparent, ethical AI sourcing while praising collaboration, constraints, and taking bold swings.
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Host: Mike Rosado
Post Production: Max Trujillo (instagram.com/trujillomedia)
Sponsors: Musgrave Pencil Company

Today we sit down with master woodcarver and former Disney Imagineering artist Ray Kinman, whose nearly 50-year career started when he bluffed his way into carving a restaurant sign with borrowed money, no tools, and zero experience. Kinman describes feeling "untalented," getting sparked by one supportive art teacher, then derailed by another, dropping out at 15 amid family turmoil, going through feral hippie years, learning silversmithing, and finally turning to carving when he had a baby on the way. After years of scraping by, his break came when an Imagineering senior designer spotted his Claim Jumper carving and brought him in; Kinman became a vendor on attractions like Indiana Jones Adventure and Winnie the Pooh. He argues real learning comes from mistakes, critiques test-driven schooling, explains Disney's desire for "wonky" human-made lines, and says AI and automation will make handmade work the new gold standard. He's planning a feature documentary around a Holly Theater commission and writing a book, Failing Forward.
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Host: Mike Rosado
Post Production: Max Trujillo (instagram.com/trujillomedia)
Sponsors: Musgrave Pencil Company

Welcome folks as we sit down to chat with illustrator-author Luke Flowers, who's illustrated more than 60 children's books, including the million-selling Moby Shinobi series, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers, and storybook adaptations of The Muppet Christmas Carol and Jim Henson's Labyrinth. Flowers shares the story of growing up on a Colorado farm, discovering illustration through local illustrator Ron Adair, developing his craft at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, and eventually breaking into publishing through a postcard he left at SCBWI New York that caught the attention of Scholastic. We talk process, budgeting, consistency, doubts, burnout, COVID, self-care, evolving styles, AI, and his ambitions for writing and directing.







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Host: Mike Rosado
Post Production: Max Trujillo (instagram.com/trujillomedia)
Sponsors: Musgrave Pencil Company

We welcome the legendary lettering and graphic design artist Michael Doret, whose 5-decade
career includes work for Kiss, the New York Knicks, Disney/Pixar, and Time Magazine covers now
in the National Portrait Gallery. He talks about why he wrote Growing Up in Alphabet City,
published in late 2024, and his wanting to tell his own story before someone else did. He also
gets into how childhood visuals shaped his color and letterforms, often subconsciously, from a
Good Humor truck decal to Coney Island signage.
 
The conversation covers his path through tuition-free Cooper Union, mentorship under Ed
Benguiat at Photo-Lettering, a formative Push Pin stint with Milton Glaser, his sketch-first
process, declining standards in signage, skepticism about AI originality, the origins of the Knicks
logo, and his advice to work less and live more.



Listen to us Spotify, iTunes, Amazon
Watch and subscribe on YouTube
Follow us on Instagram
Host: Mike Rosado
Post Production: Max Trujillo (instagram.com/trujillomedia)
Sponsors: Musgrave Pencil Company