Noted Canadian animation veteran, Blair Kitchen passed away untimely on early Sunday, 5 January morning. The much-loved and respected animator, comic-book creator and educator bid adieu to the mortal world due to a blood clot that had developed in his brain over Christmas.
Kitchen, who learnt animation at Sheridan College, began his career as an animator on the animated series Stickin’ Around in 1997. He worked on projects such as Kronk’s New Groove, Curious George and The 3 Wise Men at Yowza Animation.
Kitchen was also a designer on shows such as Busytown Mysteries, artist on Wayside, and animator on Life’s a Zoo, A Miser Brothers’ Christmas and Glenn Martin DDS. Over the past two decades, Kitchen also worked as a storyboard artist at House of Cool, Mercury Filmworks and as a stop-motion animator at Cuppa Coffee Animation. He also taught animation at Toronto’s Seneca College and was the creator of the comic books The Possum and Copy Cat for Possum Press.
Besides the above mentioned ones, he worked as a designer on The Ripping Friends, Amberwood’s Hoze Hounds and as a storyboard artist on Nelvana shows such as Spliced, Johnny Test and Scaredy Squirrel. Most recently he was a storyboard artist on DreamWorks/Netflix series acclaimed Trollhunters: Tales of Aracadia and on the series Welcome to the Wayne. This past year, he also worked on the acclaimed Netflix series Green Eggs and Ham and was a story artist on Fox/Blue Sky’s 2017 movie Ferdinand.
