what I make
I almost exclusively make art digitally. I alternate between pursing painterly styles (I enjoy the feeling of the piece emerging that you get from working alla prima)and more illustration-oriented graphic styles.
Recently, I’ve also started to explore pixel art as I’ve been spending more time working on 2D games
commission
I’ve briefly offered commissons, but these have been closed for a few months as I reapproach my practice. I hope to open them back up sometime in 2024 and expand what I’m offering.
relearning
I used to draw and create regularly as a kid — I once made a diorama of Redwall characters for a local library display when I was in middle school. But that stopped as I grew up and got too busy and too self conscious. By high school I doodled in notebooks occasionally and by the time I graduated I did even less. In college, I drew when needed for assignments, but never as a hobby or itentional, personal act.
The decision to pick up art again in my 30’s and finally learn digital painting (which I’d always wanted to do!) is kind of paradoxically connected to AI art generators. One day in 2022 I saw people posting about midjourney and decided to play with it. My opinion on the value of (and theft inherent in) AI-generated art has changed dramatically since, but back then it felt ethically neutral and there was a kind of magic around having an idea then being able to see it appear. I spent a lot of time toying with generators and even revived an old mastodon account so I could share them somewhere.
Over time, though, I heard more from artists and simultaniously started to feeling like typing something and wishing for a result based on somebody else’s skill wasn’t enough for me. I realized I wanted to be able to make things myself. I ditched the AI, got a cheap tablet, and started reading drawing books and taking online painting classes.
