Could you tell me a little bit about what your creative community is like? How do you approach other artists for collaboration?
I got very lucky while in college and found myself a mentor in one of my professors. He’s been really influential in showing me the right paths to take for my career, and has also introduced me to other artists in the field that have become good friends. The Sci-fi and Fantasy genre probably has one of the most welcoming community of any group, and I’m proud to be a part of it. I’ve just now gotten to the point where I feel like I have something I can contribute to those younger than me, so I try to help other inexperienced artists navigate conventions and give them advice when asked. It’s a good feeling when you can pay back a little of the help that was offered to you by someone else.
Could you walk us through the process of how you create one of your illustrations? Ideation, sketch phase and final illustration? I saw in one of your Instagram posts that you painted over a digital print, I thought it was really interesting! Is it common in your practice to combine mediums when creating illustrations? What is your favorite medium to work with?
Typically, I start by writing out ideas and making myself lists and lists of objects and known myths or stories that correlate to my ideas for the piece. I do a lot of research for each painting, because it’s important to me to get things right and to be knowledgeable about what it is I’m painting.
I work through thumbnails in my small Moleskine typically using a ballpoint pen. I was a noodler in college and would waste a lot of time trying to fix thumbnails, so pen helps me be a bit more precise and less concerned about the quality of the thumbnail and more concerned about the quality of the composition and idea.
From there, I do a loose drawing on an enlarged thumbnail to work out a few details. Before I go any further, I take reference photos, taking into account lighting and subject matter. Once I have all of the reference I need collected, including images for objects, materials, etc., I do a tighter drawing. I tweak and refine as I go, and take more reference if need be until I’m happy, and then I go straight into painting. As I mull over the piece in the early stages, I tend to get a color palette in my head that I know I’m going to use. I love to make vibrant pieces that suck the viewer in with their radiant color.
I was taught to paint traditionally in college, and it influences my work quite a bit, but I made the decision to go entirely digital a few years ago because I have a passion for the medium. Most people are stigmatized by the word digital, but to me and many other artists, it’s just another medium and another tool.
I have been working on finding a hybrid between traditional and digital because I miss the tactility of a traditional painting. I’ve combined mediums in the past, but I want to incorporate it into my process so that it’s a vital step in the outcome of a piece.