Mike Wimmer

Born in 1961 and raised in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Mike Wimmer has been sketching and painting since age 6. His stepfather brought home paper and cardboard from his job at a box factory for him to draw on while his mother, then a college student and later a teacher at Mike’s middle school, introduced him to the world of books. Wimmer was deeply impressed with the classic adventure stories such as Treasure Island, especially those with the illustrations of such greats as N.C.Wyeth and Harvard Pyle.

Excelling both academically and athletically in high school, he began to take his artistic aspirations seriously as his graduation approached. He turned down his mother's offer to pay his college tuition if he would work on a degree in a "practical field" such as law or medicine.  Instead, Wimmer followed his grandfather's advice, that if he did what he loved he would excel and he would be richly compensated for it as well. 

Accordingly, he paid his own way when he started a bachelor of art program at the University of Oklahoma in 1979. Two years of the program were at the Sketchpad Studio in Arlington, Texas on a commercial arts apprenticeship.  His graduation in 1984 was made even sweeter by the fact that his own design was used on the diploma he and his fellow graduates received.

His first freelance assignments barely paid his and his new wife's bills. But, gradually through hard work (completing upwards of 150 paintings a year), he established himself as a respected commercial artist.

Wimmer currently lives in Norman, Oklahoma, with his wife and their two children.

About his art

Wimmer conceptualizes his work by first producing numerous thumbnail sketches. He uses these not only to develop his illustrations, but also as a vehicle to better gauge his client's particular interests and needs. His productivity belies the meticulous research he does, especially when crafting historically-based paintings, such as those found in Flight: The Journey of Charles Lindbergh. Not only did he construct a scale model Spirit of St. Louis, but he recreated a full-scale cockpit in order to assure the plane's proportions would be accurate.  Ironically, after a careful search for a train station to use in Train Song, Wimmer finally selected one close to where he lives in Norman, seeing in the then dilapidated structure something of its noble past. 

The people he uses as models in his paintings are often family and acquaintances, so it is hardly surprising that one of his friends became Babe Ruth in Home Run. However, Wimmer is not shy about approaching strangers. So while his son and daughter posed for the cover of All the Places to Love, the book's grandmother was discovered in a Tulsa shopping mall. He once even found his Moses, flowing beard and all, sitting in a restaurant near the University of Oklahoma.

It is appropriate that Wimmer's letterhead reads "I Do Art" as he has painted everything from the CD art for Disney's Lion King, to telephone book covers, to full-color,  full-page advertisements appearing in nationally-circulating magazines. Still, he is best known for his children's illustrations, which grace the covers of more than 200 books and fill the pages of almost a dozen more. It is his sensitivity and receptivity to the needs of a particular project, plus his talent and work ethic, that have propelled Wimmer into one of children's literature's most promising artists.

Related Exhibitions: Summertime - Mike Wimmer (2010)