My art comes from two very different places.

I learned the fundamentals from my grandfather as a very young child. He was a display man, a commercial artist who designed store windows and retail spaces and advertising. He’d take me to work with him and explain to me what we were doing while he let me help.

I learned more about graphic design and artistic principles from him than I ever picked up in a classroom.

The other root is medieval illumination. I started learning how to recreate medieval illumination as part of a re-enactment group in college, creating award scrolls for the group and adhering closely to
traditional illumination, but it always made me feel claustrophobic when I was deep into the work.

So in my personal art, I began to let the shapes change, the threads of the knotwork go where they wanted. The result has been something more organic. Messy. Lines that struggle against containment. A barely-ordered chaos.

I mainly work in ink and watercolor on paper, but I don't confine myself to it. I also have a substantial number of oil pastel drawings and digital pieces. In the olden days I also painted with acrylic wash and I have been considering returning to it for larger canvases.

I still have and use some of my grandfather's brushes and tools alongside my newer ones. The mixture of old and new tools and media dovetails nicely into the train wreck of ancient and modern in my subject matter

No matter what I intend to paint, I always find my way back into natural and mystical motifs. Behind the knotwork, flowers, birds, alchemical symbols and pagan themes are common.

I have an ongoing series of 12"x18" paintings based on tarot cards and I am working on a full line of pagan devotional images for the Wiccan/Neopagan Wheel of the Year and various gods, goddesses, demigods and spirits of all faiths. If you have a request for a deity/spirit or holiday you don't see here, feel free to use the contact form and I will add them to my list

My process looks more like graphic design than the stereotypical artist's rituals. I approach it like a problem to be solved: How do I communicate this message and this emotion with these elements? What’s the hierarchy of information? Am I drawing people’s attention around in the right order? I usually start with a thumbnail sketch, either in pencil or in Illustrator, so I can ensure the composition is balanced before I commit to an ink line.

Then, I just do it. Being inspired is great, but I think we place too much emphasis on it as a motivator. It’s like a muscle – you have to train it to make it reliable. If you do your creative thing regularly, then inspiration will strike once you’re already working on it. The most important thing is to start.