Growing up in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania, my favorite activities were being outside and building and making things. Inside days were spent with LEGO and Play-Doh and various crafts. By the age of twelve I was taking lessons in oil painting and watercolors, and my freshman year of high school treated me to two semesters of Drawing & Painting, introducing charcoal, pen and ink, still life studies, composition and design. 

In 2001 I started an online business to sell my work, learning HTML to customize a GeoCities site and installing Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator on my computer. Adobe products have had a home on my devices ever since, alongside Wacom tablets. As my business grew, I advanced my skills through online courses from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and the Academy of Art University, San Francisco in graphic design, web design, typography, Art History, branding, and various studio arts. Self-directed practice included intensive figure drawing studies, master-copies of historic paintings, and applying techniques from Juliette Aristides’ Classical Drawing Atelier and Classical Painting Atelier and Andrew Loomis’ practical guidebooks to professional illustration. I owe a debt to James Gurney’s online resources, and his textbook, Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter.  

For several years my concentration was aviation art, commissioned by pilots, private collectors, veterans’ groups, historical societies and air museums, including the United States Civil Air Patrol. I’ve designed logos and branding for organizations and individuals, websites for churches and non-profits, and CD inserts for musicians. I’ve done fully digital fantasy illustrations, pet and human portraiture in traditional and digital media, and vintage photo restoration. I created curriculum and tutorials for figure drawing and digital painting, taught online courses, and gave live demonstrations. I have a college-level education in video production with hobbyist experience in audio production, held CompTIA A+ certification in the mid-2000’s, and continue to enjoy building my own computers. 

Over the past 25 years, my skills necessarily have grown together: photography for capturing assets, references and final work; proficiency with Photoshop and Illustrator to communicate my efforts in print and online; and the intensive study of Classical drawing, painting, and compositional methods foundational to precise, efficient development. In every discipline, I strive to produce work that is clean and coherent, pleasing to the viewer in ways only the human hand and eye can impart.