Born in 1941, Cooper MacDougall showed an interest in drawing, painting and sculpting from an early age, often building totem poles from household supplies and painting in vivid colors on the walls of his room. After finishing the School of Art Institute in Tacoma, Washington, he started working as an illustrator and poster designer for the advertising industry.

But MacDougall's career took an interesting turn when his good friend Marvin Seafall, book editor at Ringer Publishing, saw MacDougall's sketches from a personal side project. MacDougall had been drawing funny ghost stories for his young children, and Seafall saw the potential for a children's book series. The "Spooky Ghost" series of books turned out to be an immediate success, and other books like The Pumpkin Patch followed and became bestsellers for Ringer Children's Classics.

In his later years, MacDougall became interested in Polynesian art, and travelled to Hawaii and other Pacific islands to learn how to carve traditional tiki statues. As a result of these studies, MacDougall contributed some concept art to the popular animated series, Surf's Up at Sundown, which featured surfing vampires in Honolulu.

Today, Cooper MacDougall is mostly retired, primarily working on sculpture in his studio in the mountains near Little Greenwood, Washington.