The success of the book resulted in both working for Ralph Bakshi Studios where they created background art for the 1983 animated feature movie Fire and Ice. Two years later they produced a book, The Artist's Guide to Sketching, which was one of Guptill Publications' best-sellers that year. The two of them finished their journey in New York and secured a contract with Guptill Publications to produce a sketching handbook. After two years of general education at Berkeley, Kinkade transferred to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.ĭuring June 1980, Kinkade spent a summer traveling across the United States with his college friend James Gurney. Kinkade's relationship with Wesman is the subject of a semi-autobiographical movie released during 2008, Christmas Cottage. Wesman encouraged Kinkade to go to the University of California at Berkeley.
Some of the people who mentored and taught Kinkade prior to college were Charles Bell and Glen Wesman.
He grew up in the town of Placerville, graduated from El Dorado High School in 1976, and attended the University of California, Berkeley, and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. William Thomas Kinkade was born on January 19, 1958, in Sacramento County, California.
