Alice Sinkner wanted to become a midwife when she was 18, but politics interfered – and led her instead into an international art career that has instead focused heavily on children’s entertainment.
Sinkner was born in the Czech Republic, and took some early art lessons there – but her father found himself on the wrong side of the political spectrum during a chaotic time, and the family immigrated to Austria, where it lived for 18 months, before deciding to move once again.
This time it was Canada and Kingston, with the beauty of the Thousand Islands, and Sinkner loved that area.
Her midwife choice was forced; her dreams of being an artist remained, despite the blocks from her home country and then ones in her new home.
“I wanted to go to school. I couldn’t speak English,” she said. She has long since overcome that difficulty.
“I always wanted to illustrate,” she remembers of her Czech school days. Politics prevented that, but not in Canada, and she quickly learned that even without a great command of English, art is a universal language.
Five years after she wanted to start in art school in the Czech Republic, she was enrolled in Sheridan College, merely the best known art and illustration school in North America.
Such is Sheridan’s reputation that many of its graduates go straight to such prestigious places as Disney Studios to ply their craft. Sinkner remembers in her graduating year, she and the other two dozen students had to create a one-minute animated movie. She said what might seem like a very short project turned into many hours for all the students. It was a labour of love – and it had to be.
She graduated in Collage Classical and 3D computer animation.
“We had about 25 studios from the U.S. come to do their hiring,” she remembers of that final term. Those studio representatives made their decisions based on students’ movies.
She got a job that took her eventually to Los Angeles and Hollywood – even though that meant getting a Green Card. She worked in several animation studios as a pre-design and background artist on animated movies such as Rugrats (the Klasky Csupo Animation Studio), Franklin the Turtle, George and Martha, Flying Rhinos Junior High, Birdz, Walt Disney’s Gargoyles, Warner Brothers Waynehead and Canadian feature animated movie Anne of Green Gables.
Around that time she also had a daughter and decided Los Angeles and Hollywood was no place to raise a child. She returned to Canada, but admits “Toronto scared me.”
She moved to Oakville and commuted to a studio in Toronto and discovered she could work part time at home. That, she said, gave her the idea she could have her own studio in her house and cut commuting.
Sinkner worked for Nelvana Enterprises, which distributes to broadcasters and home entertainment companies around the world. It is owned by Corus Entertainment, another major media company. Sinkner said with its size, Nelvana is a “cartoon factory.”
She did four seasons of Franklin the Turtle for TV and then began illustrating Franklin books.
When her husband became ill, the family moved to Rockwood, where she continued to do a huge amount of work on Franklin the Turtle. She began offering art lessons to children. She then moved to Fergus into an old house she has been fixing to reflect her artistic character and old world ideals of class, and it has a large studio where she someday hopes to again teach students several hours a week.
Sinkner said she bounces back and forth between a number of art forms. The Franklin the Turtle books take up a great deal of her time, but she also works on animation and television shows.
She said when she began, most of the animation work was done by hand. She would do water colours for backdrops, and the studio could superimposed characters on them and give them the sense of movement.
It all began to change, though, when computer graphics began, and she was right there to grab onto that new technology. She said she remembers one studio head asking her if it should get involved with computers and she replied with an emphatic yes.
The reason is saving time. Sinkner said if a studio wants changes in a drawing, in the old days, that would have to be done by hand and could take hours or even days. On computer, it does not.
“On a computer, I can do changes in minutes,” she said.
The show where she began the switch to technology was George and Martha. She also did the digital painting for the backgrounds for Sullivan Animation’s Anne of Green Gables.
And, she began working with Kids Can Press, illustrating other children’s books.
She has now been illustrating Franklin books for 20 years, and she does the painting and design for the entire book. “I started working on Franklin – and have about 23 books published.”
Plus, she said, there have been “spin-off books.”
She did a “stickers” book and then a First Reader’s book.
“People were buying my books in Czechoslovakia,” she said with a grin. “I went to Europe, and Franklin was on TV.”
And, she said, “My life is not boring.”
Instead, it remains busy, but Sinkner has a love of work.
“I found a New York agent and started working on illustrations for a Korean publishing company. I just finished two books from Japan. I sent a portfolio to Czechoslovakia. I have nine books published in Czech.”
That work is for European publishing company Albatros, and in Asia she works with Korean publishing company Compass Media.
The Asian books are often teacher’s aids, she said, noting they are often English-as-a-second language books – an area with which she is familiar.
She explained publishing in Czechoslovakia, where she does children’s books, is also a little different. “They buy the books from the U.S. and U.K. They have to find their own translators and illustrations.”
Sinkner does about three books a year, but because they sell well, that seems to be increasing.
In a digital world, there appears to be some irony, too.
“I’m going to Europe in two months,” she said of visiting her homeland. “I want to meet them and introduce myself – because we’ve never met.”
That is how an international artist works today. “Everything goes through email.”
But there can be difficulties, she noted with a smile. Time zones in Europe and east Asia do not really match those of central Canada.
“I sleep with a cell phone. When they sleep, I work.”
And then she has a business called Kleio Horse Hair Jewelry that includes necklaces and bracelets.
Sinkner started that in Rockwood. Her husband was ill and she started making jewelry using human hair. She said that was a tradition in Europe as far back as the 11th and 12th centuries, and “a big memory keepsake.”
She recently took part in a horse show in London with a display, and operates her studio, naturally, from her Fergus home. She added horse hair to the craft and found success.
For Alice Sinkner, life is a whirl of work. She noted she had just finished 12 illustrations for Korea and shipped them by email. While she was waiting to see if there are changes to be made, she created jewelry.
Her life is anything but boring.
To reach Sinkner and to view her jewelry and art, visit www.kleio.ca or phone 519-843-3068 or email info@kleio.ca.
