How did you get into art?

I had this assignment in 7th grade science class where I had to draw a wolf howling at the moon. I don’t remember why it had to be a wolf howling at the moon, just that it did and I had a lot of fun doing it. My mom saw it and decided on the spot that she would buy me a sketchbook, and then she kept on buying them as I filled them up. She encouraged each of us (I have 5 siblings) to pursue something creative, and that’s something I am doing with my own kids.

What is your artistic background?

I had this art teacher in high school that would mark over our assignments in red pen- after she did that to me, I refused to give her work and ended up failing both classes that I had with her. She was the reason I didn’t want to go to art school after graduation, and my mom was (and still is) supportive of my decision to live my life how I choose. So I enlisted, served 12 years on active duty, and then when I was medically separated in 2018 I figured it was probably a sign that I should finally go to art school. I graduated with a bachelor’s in Illustration from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in 2022, and now I’m working on a series of portraits in oil for my first gallery show!

Who are your inspirations?

My biggest inspirations are Kelogsloops, Lyfe Illustration, Aaron Griffin, Miho Hirano, Alice X. Zhang, Ryo Shiotani, and Stephanie Pui Mun Law, to name a few. Each of these artists have inspired me for years, both with their work and to put in the work so I can one day reach their level of mastery. Each one has something valuable to teach, so I’m following in their footsteps in order to one day reach where they are.

How did you find your art style?

Honestly, I feel like I’m still figuring it out. I keep finding different things that I like, so I try to fit them together into what I already do or scrap everything to build it up again into a new solid voice. I was working digitally for my senior portfolio (primarily because it’s the fastest of my skills), but now I’m working in oil again, and the mindset for each is rather different. I can’t just click undo if I mess up with oil, so I am much more careful with a paintbrush than with a digital pen. This also means that I’m slower, but I feel like that’s a fairly standard tradeoff. Physically creating things is going to take longer than digitally creating them because of the differences in how things are built up and how mistakes are corrected.
While figuring out your art style is somewhat important, obsessing over it instead of learning how to improve is bad. It’s a process that changes throughout our lives as artists because our ‘style’ is really an amalgamation of what we’ve learned so far and how we’ve learned to do it, either through watching others or our own experimentation. So rather than focusing on ‘finding’ our art styles, we should work on learning how to create better, how to streamline the process so the work flows easier, how to better communicate our messages in the way that we each choose whether it’s realism or abstract, and so on. If we focus on improving as artists, then our styles will develop as we go.

How did you learn how to draw and paint?

Initially I learned through trial and error to draw what I saw, which was mostly anime to begin with. By the time I got to high school I had the basic fundamentals of drawing down pretty well, but hadn’t picked up painting yet. I actually graduated high school (2005) thinking I couldn’t paint worth a damn and didn’t try again until some friends talked me into going to a Mixers & Masters while I was pregnant with my youngest (2014). It came out pretty well (helped that I was sober), so I bought some paint and tried again. It came out pretty well too, so I bought more paint and more canvases and kept going. Not all of them came out well, so I eventually went to YouTube and started watching painting tutorials. This continued even while I was attending RMCAD, because I had to go online since we lived in Montana at the time, so I watched tutorials to learn how to do what I needed to do for my assignments (not all teachers provided video instructions/examples). I still watch YouTube tutorials now, because there are so many different ways to do things that I feel like there’s always something that can be improved on. Every time I think I have a concept nailed I go watch a few different videos about how to do it, just to see if there’s something better. There usually is, so it’s a continuous process. Perfection is a goal, but the journey to that goal is what’s more important.

Do you use references?

Absolutely. My visual library is NOT all encompassing, while the internet is. I love Google Image search, Pinterest, and photography sites like Shutterstock and Envato, and recently I’ve gotten into 3D sculpting too, so I can ‘build’ scenes that I can change the elements in before I draw/paint them. I also take my own photos to use as reference when I can’t find something to match the vision in my head, but I am definitely not a photographer. They make their own kind of magic, and it is breathtaking what they can do with props, lighting, scenery, and costumes. I am very much a realistic artist, so I use references in order to make sure that I put in as much detail as possible. When someone says using references is ‘cheating’, I just shrug. To each their own.

Do you have any advice for someone getting started in art?

Experiment! Try everything that calls to you that’s within your means to try, and if something isn’t within your means right now, figure out how to use what you already have to make it anyway. ‘Necessity is the mother of creativity’ is something that I’ve been living by since I was a kid, and it has gotten me through so many things I’ve lost count. It applies to literally everything too, not just art, so don’t limit yourself with ‘inside the box’ thinking. Obviously still figure out risks and plan accordingly first (mineral spirits are dangerous in a small windowless room, for example, so get a fan, go to a window room, or go outside), but be creative. Experiment. Find out what happens, how things work, why they work, and then go from there. Be curious!

Where do you find inspiration?

Sometimes it comes from something random- a place, a photo, a movie, a song, a setting, a video, something on social media, something my husband or one of my kids point out, etc. Other times it just kind of shows up in my head, sometimes fully formed sometimes not, and I have to go dig for references to get it fully visualized before I start sketching and planning out how to create whatever it is. Right now I’m working on a series that will be called ‘Eye Contact’, and each piece is planned around a concept that has eye contact or lack of it to communicate it’s purpose. The first piece is called ‘Listen’, and is of a tattooed woman looking away from the viewer while holding up a hand to hush the snake on her shoulder so she can ‘listen’ to a particular voice. Whether the voice is inside or outside is up to the viewer to decide, because ultimately the viewer is meant to choose what voice they themselves want or need to listen to. The second piece is called ‘Imagine’, and is of a nude tattooed woman from the waist up looking softly to the fox on her shoulder, as though she is telling it to ‘imagine being judged for who we are instead of what we are.’ The rest of the pieces are kind of half-formed at the moment because I want to finish these two before I move on to the next, but they are marinating in my brain, just waiting to be uncovered.

What are your goals?

I’m still figuring them out. I know I want to keep creating, keep bringing things to life, and keep improving my process, but otherwise it’s kind of up in the air. I used to want to work as an animator at Disney or Pixar, but since my style is very heavy on realism it doesn’t feel like a such a great fit anymore. Plus I’m really enjoying creating what I want to create instead of having to follow someone else’s orders- I had enough that while I was enlisted that I’d really rather not follow anymore orders, thanks! I do want to show my work in galleries- around the world would be great, in Japan would be a dream because I’d love to go back one day. I want to continue growing my social media presence so I can start teaching and inspiring new artists everything that I’ve learned on my journey. That way they learn faster/better than I did, because watching other people grow is inspiring all over again- it’s kind of like being a proud parent watching your child succeed even better than you did with the tools and concepts you gave them. Watching them go on to teach others and having them succeed is even better- one of my troops just made Master Sergeant, and I couldn’t be more proud of her.