A Peak Into My Process

20 years ago I picked up a pencil to sketch a drawing of the Milan Gothic Cathedral. I didn’t realize at the time that that was a bit lofty of a goal, I simply knew a friend that had a dream to visit there and I wanted to create a sketch of his dream. I had also never sketched anything seriously. That drawing turned out quite amazing and I realized at the time I was gifted with the ability of visual transfer. That didn’t mean that I knew how to render anything accurately though, especially faces and structures. It simply showed me that I could learn how to do it if I really wanted to….and I did.

Creativity has always come easily to me and artistic abilities were not foreign, but I had never spent a lot of time drawing or learning how to paint, I was too busy playing the flute, being an athlete, or working as a snarky clown for a bit. I took art in high school and loved it, but my athletic and musical skills trumped the art, and that led me down a path to earn a degree in PE K-12 then on to a Master’s in Early Childhood. I processed creativity visual, without realizing I had skills to paint or draw for the most part, and I gained a fearlessness of expression.

One morning, from my bed, after I was recovering from one of my surgeries I felt good enough to make a trip to the library. I knew I had days ahead of being still, recovering, so I wanted something to do for my sanity. Watercolors, especially really colorful ones, always attracted me so I checked out several books about how to paint watercolors, acquired a simple set, and gave myself permission to let the pigment flow. It was one of those red letter moments that changes the path of your steps without being aware.

I began to explore and discover ways of using watercolors well, and I paired those with my love of structure and function. Painting reflections in glass, imaginative seascapes and buildings, and odd little characters were something that brought me challenge and joy. I didn’t realize it at the time but those initial hours of exploration would reinforce my fearless approach to trying anything and everything without the fear of doing it wrong. Quite unsuspectingly, it also began to help my spirit and body heal little by little every single day.

My first photo and watercolor painting of reflected glassware

Over the years, I committed passionately to self study. I wanted to learn everything I could about how to develop my own style, my own visual language, and how to create from a place of authentic distinction. As I learned, I taught, and I become acutely aware that being an artist from self-taught means gave me a ton of freedom to pursue my own version of what pushing past ordinary would look at feel like in paint and pigment, as well as words.

Although I started with a pencil and watercolor, I quickly learned the amount of freedom that mixed media acrylic offered me and fell in love with it. I spent a year learning to define my own visual framework and why, and my artwork shifted in huge ways toward speaking for me when words failed. All the while my imagination and characters soared.

If you look back at my contemporary art website and view my figurative works, you will see a complete commitment to characters that are elaborately clothed, adorned with outrageous headwear and crowns, or fractured through line and color. The imperfection is palpable and deliberate because my framework is based on creating imperfectly beautiful characters and moments through breaking the color plane with line or texture. Many of these characters are the first iterations of my book characters and will become the bridge to the final images in my books.

Several of those were contrived through the use of my working journals, a combination of sketch ideas and narrative, and an unexpected turn of intuition. My two main characters initially were Arly of Ardithian with Rainbow Colored hair and Phintention Maxwell Pendigrassican III. Today, my characters have evolved and expanded into over 50 distinct character sets, settings, and plotlines for the overall story. This is exciting and overwhelming altogether, exactly as it should be. Part of this website launch will expose you to those sets as I begin to share my ideas, process, studies, iterations, and final paintings leading up to my huge solo show for the book launch in October 2024.

To learn more about the specific character inspirations and the book launch you can head over to my Penwondertive Ezine below!

Princess Fairy Fartblossom and Sir Flatulancealot