Mile High Animation Receives $10,000 Grant to Fund Free Animation Courses for All Ages

The Denver Creates fund has awarded a local animation studio a $10,000 grant to offer free animation courses to kids and adults. 

Since 2023, Mile High Animation has offered a summer camp and workshop series that has evolved into an educational program designed to immerse students in the principles of 2D animation and art, 3D animation, stop-motion and game design. 

The studio was created in 2022 by Eric Sinha, a professor of animation at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, who previously worked with the team that created Jimmy Neutron and on projects that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Sinha is passionate about preparing students for animation and fostering their love of animation, and earlier this year, he submitted a grant proposal to Denver Creates, a program established in 2023 after Mayor Mike Johnston was elected to support the arts and culture in Denver. Denver Creates is predominantly funded through ticket, beverage and food sales at venues like Red Rocks and the Denver Performing Arts Center.

Mile High Animation was awarded $10,000 to offer free animation courses, which Sinha says is the maximum amount.

The grant fully came into effect in November, when Mile High Animation secured an opportunity to create programming with Children’s Hospital Colorado. Mile High Animation has been partnering with other local businesses and events, like Wizard’s Chest and Fan Expo Denver. 

Sinha brought on other instructors he’s worked with at RMCAD, like Sarah Hollis. With the grant, Sinha’s hoping to engage with other local professionals and have them teach classes. Mile High Animation has been coordinating with a character designer who works for major companies like Blizzard and Warner Bros. 

“We’re trying to really have as many working professionals interface with students as much as we humanly can,” Sinha says. “That can give insight and proximity to those who are in the industry working right now. It goes beyond teaching; it’s making those professional connections.”

Sinha first began teaching high school students animation and graphic design when he lived in Texas. 

“The college I went to was mostly film, cameras, editing — that level of film — not as much animation,” Sinha says. “I had a film degree, but quickly adapted into animation because that is what the internship [with Element X Creative] was all about. It showed me that I could still do film, but within animation… I got a lot of insight about animated filmmaking. That’s where my passion for drawing and art joined with film.”

He moved to Denver in 2016, working with local animation and graphics companies like Mass FX Media. In 2018, Sinha decided to study traditional animation with Don Bluth, the filmmaker, animator and producer behind movies like The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Anastasia and more. 

In 2022, Sinha returned to teaching animation and motion graphics, where he found that many incoming students lacked a background in foundational animation principles. 

“I got hired on full-time to be a professor at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, and then shortly after, a professor at CU Denver, focusing on animation, storyboarding and motion graphics,” Sinha recalls. “What I quickly learned is that the freshmen coming to college were basically ill-prepared. When I think about someone going to college, you would think that, as a child, they had practiced and had all these extracurriculars leading up to it. But it turns out, there’s basically nothing available to high school students unless your school happens to have some level of an animation program.” 

Sinha says that’s what inspired him to create learning opportunities for youth interested in animation. 

“In 2023, I started up [Mile High Animation]. We started with six computers, and three years later, we had about a hundred students and 34 iPads. We’ve been doubling or tripling our cohort body every single year,” he says, adding that he has heard the same message from parents every year: “My child loves animation or digital art, and there is nowhere else to go to support their interests.”

The first two years, the classes offered through Mile High Animation were focused on kids, particularly early learning opportunities. However, in 2025, the studio began to offer classes catering to adults. 

And now adults and kids can take animation courses for free. It’s all on the drawing board and ready to come to life in 2026.

Mile High Animation’s free courses for traditional hand-drawn animation, 3D modeling and life drawing for both adults and children are open now for booking for sessions up to May 2026, with more to come. Find more information about the classes and summer camps offered here.