ABOUT YOU TURN STUDIOS

About You Turn Studios

 

My name is Robert Turner and I am an award-winning artist living in Knoxville and have called East Tennessee my home since 2006. I am a photographer, graphic designer, illustrator and cartoonist. I am also skilled at painting murals, writing, editing and building just about anything that can be imagined.

I was born into a military family and spent my childhood in San Diego. I have been drawing since age six, specializing in unique cartoon characters. I earned a B.A. in Graphic Design from California State University, Northridge and was an honor graduate.

I worked full time in the art field in Los Angeles until moving to Blaine in Grainger County, Tennessee. I worked in Bean Station at a weekly newspaper, first as a Graphic Designer, then as the Creative Director. A competing newspaper began running editorial cartoons and I knew I could do better. This started a long road of creating editorial cartoons based on local or national news, and sometimes drawn to go with editorial or personal columns. My creativity thrived from having free reign from the publisher and editor. I participated in the Tennessee Press Association’s State Press Award competition, hosted yearly by the University of Tennessee. I earned back-to-back, first place honors for illustration in 2009 and 2010. I consistently won awards in a variety of categories, taking two more first place awards for illustration and a few more for makeup and appearance. I had my editorial cartoons exhibited at the University of Tennessee’s Downtown Gallery in 2023. They were also part of The Ewing Galleries exhibit: A Serious Look at the Funnies: 100 Years of Comics. I was also asked to display my illustrations and paintings at Jacks Coffee on Gay Street in Knoxville.

While laying out and designing the newspaper, I started taking photos for stories. I was drawn to sports and soon developed a creative style for capturing the action and also being able to layout those photos in striking designs. I love photography and am striving to learn everything I can to be able to shoot any situation and make people smile.

I like to blend my design and illustration ideas with my photography.

I feel my style is very unique and completely different from other artists. Growing up on Mad Magazine and the newspaper comics, I drew influences from all over, but the results are always distinctively my own. Beginning on film cameras, the transition to digital was a breeze. Having years of computer graphic experience helps me edit photos to make them stand out. I started my career pre-computers with paste-up and I still like to get my hands dirty with anything art-related.

I live in Knoxville with my wife, Brenda, two dogs and a cat. My son, Riley, lives nearby with his wife, Bethany and angelic daughter, Delaney.

 

Experience

 

I began working as an assistant art director for two national magazines right out of college. I was involved with design and production and assisted on a number of photo shoots. Next, I was hired as an art director for a national women’s magazine were I oversaw design, with a staff for production, and hired photographers and illustrators for stories. Next was art director for six years for a national supermarket promotion company. I left that job to go to school for Computer Graphics. While working at two print shops, I started a graphic design business that was run by my wife. I was hired as a Print Production Manager for The Good Sam Club/Camping World/Affinity Group, Inc. where I created and managed a team of artists and support staff. That was followed by almost six years as a Prepress Supervisor for the Ventura County Star newspaper, owned by Scripps, Inc. In addition to these full-time jobs, I have consistently helped others with many creative art projects. I always love a challenge. If you need it, I can design it, paint it, draw it, photograph it and probably build it.