CCS Welcomes Elizabeth Bauer to Illustration Department

The College for Creative Studies (CCS) is pleased to announce that Elizabeth “Betsy” Bauer has joined CCS as Assistant Professor of Illustration, effective Fall semester. Bauer comes to the College from DreamWorks TV in Los Angeles where, in her role as a visual development artist, she has been part of the art team for the series The Boss Baby and Guillermo del Toro’s Tales of Arcadia series, all airing on Netflix. Bauer brings more than a decade of industry experience to CCS and her background in animation will help her to serve as a crucial bridge between the Illustration and Entertainment Arts departments.

At DreamWorks TV since 2018, Bauer has worked on two programs in the Tales of Arcadia series: doing character design, painting, environment and prop design for Wizards (slated for summer 2020) and as a texture markup artist (2D) for 3Below(2018).

Influenced at a young age by Disney films and social media art-sharing communities like DeviantArt, Bauer knew early on that she wanted to draw and paint, but within animation. She began her career as a visual development apprentice at Digital Domain before eventually moving on to Google to work on their Google Doodle series, designing dozens of static doodles and leading three large interactive doodles, including International Valentine’s Day and International Women’s Day, both 2013.

Bauer later did turns at Paramount Animation on the feature film Wonder Park (2019) and at Sony Pictures Animation doing character design for EMOJIMOVIE: Express Yourself (2017). She has also done significant print work as a freelance illustrator, including My Little Golden Book about Jackie Robinson (2018).

Betsy Bauer has taught digital painting at Laguna College of Art and Design, an AICAD sister school. She received her BFA from Ringling College of Art and Design.

“I’m looking forward to sharing my animation experience with CCS students — and helping students who are interested in pursuing visual development,” Bauer said about joining the College. “But one of the best parts of what I do is getting to see how something that came out of my head gets interpreted and ends up on the big screen. I want to share the joy behind the work, too.”