carlos joaquin
Illustrator in Santa Ana, California, United States
“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
- Pablo Picasso
Bio:
Carlos was born in Michoacan, Mexico in the small town of Ario de Rosales. His family immigrated to the USA when he was just a 1 1/2 year old. Santa Ana, CA is the only home he has known.
In the beginning, his favorite things to draw were cartoons; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, then The Simpsons, and later anything Disney: The Little Mermaid, Lion King, Toy Story. He won an art contest in the first grade, and his teacher encouraged him to follow his art. In junior high, he would compete in unofficial art contests with his classmates, he won one hands down with a drawing of Darryl Strawberry (from the Fleer ’91 card) – the other contestant bowed out.
During high school he drew caricatures of his entire wrestling team and started a tradition for future artist wrestlers. People were always asking him to draw them something. He would annoy his brother by pausing animated movies to draw one of the characters during a crucial scene. One of his drawings made it into the school art magazine. After graduation high school, he earned his A.A. degree in Graphic Design from Brooks College in Long Beach, CA. He attended CSUF and studied Animation for 2 years but left before graduating to pursue a career at Apple, Inc.
For over a decade he stopped making artwork, until one day he rediscovered a tool that would allow him to express the visions in his head. It’s a digital tool called the “pen tool” and you can find it in vector software programs like Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, and Apple Pages. He considers it a modern chisel and has spent countless hours mastering it to create his digital work.
Recently, he picked up a pencil and started to make tiny illustrations for fun, some of the drawings he finishes with ink. He began posting his tiny art to Instagram and has been gaining followers on a daily basis. He has a goal of posting one drawing a day. The sketches range from the whimsical to pop-culture references. He loves drawing caricatures and exploring different pen techniques to create new takes on classic characters.
He lives and works in Santa Ana out of his home studio and is encouraged daily by his number one fan – his beautiful wife.