My Philosophy/Artist Statement
Like many artists, I create work that communicates a visual narrative. But more importantly my work reads as playful and humorous, and makes the viewer smile or appreciate the content. With the majority of my work being based around caricatures and animals, I often find myself drawing by observation in my sketchbook and then creating an idea for a composition and then onto the final piece.
In some of my art, specifically the “smoking animals”, I am conveying a mix of something beautiful and natural with something that has now become taboo. I like to create characters out of birds, and make them life-like in real life situations. To me, my birds are representations of human beings and do the same things that many of us do. I find individuals and animals to have their own character traits, and attempt to exploit those traits visually. Like the idiom, “that’s for the birds” is intended to describe something meaningless. Through the use of humor, I exploit pop culture using my illustrations.
With Photoshop and Procreate, I am creating work faster and even experimenting with it. In some instances, I will take a traditional piece that I created in watercolor or gouache and will finish the background digitally. While I offer the sense of realism, I create an atmosphere in which I can experiment with these mixed mediums. Drawing and painting digitally is a fairly new medium and I continue to explore new techniques and creating my own brushes for the desired visual effects.
Some of my works use detail and fine rendering to more fully examine texture and engage the viewer. Some explore color and line with minimal value shifts, while in others, they are the starting point for something fantastical. I push myself to create a more combined aesthetic, but I lean toward a Realism and Pop Art combination stylization.
I am not creating cartoon characters, but tying together realism with exaggeration. This sense of exaggeration is required to achieve what my imagination is trying to convey in a piece. Exploration of color and content a must, but I continue to build a more cohesive portfolio or collection of works. As my collection of works continues to grow, I will continue to explore new subject matter, ideas, and challenge myself to develop them further.
In some of my art, specifically the “smoking animals”, I am conveying a mix of something beautiful and natural with something that has now become taboo. I like to create characters out of birds, and make them life-like in real life situations. To me, my birds are representations of human beings and do the same things that many of us do. I find individuals and animals to have their own character traits, and attempt to exploit those traits visually. Like the idiom, “that’s for the birds” is intended to describe something meaningless. Through the use of humor, I exploit pop culture using my illustrations.
With Photoshop and Procreate, I am creating work faster and even experimenting with it. In some instances, I will take a traditional piece that I created in watercolor or gouache and will finish the background digitally. While I offer the sense of realism, I create an atmosphere in which I can experiment with these mixed mediums. Drawing and painting digitally is a fairly new medium and I continue to explore new techniques and creating my own brushes for the desired visual effects.
Some of my works use detail and fine rendering to more fully examine texture and engage the viewer. Some explore color and line with minimal value shifts, while in others, they are the starting point for something fantastical. I push myself to create a more combined aesthetic, but I lean toward a Realism and Pop Art combination stylization.
I am not creating cartoon characters, but tying together realism with exaggeration. This sense of exaggeration is required to achieve what my imagination is trying to convey in a piece. Exploration of color and content a must, but I continue to build a more cohesive portfolio or collection of works. As my collection of works continues to grow, I will continue to explore new subject matter, ideas, and challenge myself to develop them further.