My work mainly is illustrative focusing on a scene or an environment, though most of the time I draw figures or humans. I work with thin layers of watercolor and build up from there. I focus on people because the reason I got into art was for the storytelling aspect of it. The characters in my art often tend to be part of another bigger piece from a specific story idea I have. In some of my recent work, I chose to pick individualize tarot cards because I admire how tarot cards and playing cards are pieces of art of the common person, not nobility, not millionaires, just people, and how art continues in peoples everyday lives with the air of prestige about it.
I usually work with graphite and watercolor in my art, though I do like working with charcoal. I use mixed media because I like how different media’s can work together to create a finished piece. A recent medium I have been using a lot is ink and ink washes since I like how they are more opaque and stable then watercolor. I have a spontaneity when I work since there is a transformation to my beginning idea to the finished project, but I’ve learned to take that in stride and appreciate the transformation. I’ve learned that trying to stick with a vision and resist change can lead to some frustrating results so my work tends to adapt as it is being created.
What I try to communicate through my art is another experience. I wish to take my audience to another place with my art and have them feel and experience something they have never had before. People, as humans, want to experience everything they possibly can and art allows for a safer way to experience things we may have never been able to and that’s why I admire art. This is why I choose to focus on illustrative art more than anything else, to get an experience foreign to me, and then produce my experience to others so they might experience my life in a more palatable way.
In my current work I am working on producing a series of tarot cards with images of my life and how the meaning of the cards can be related to an American teenager with an anxiety disorder. While I know that my experience may not be entirely unique, the way a mental disorder does affect your life and how you interact with the world and the people in it. I plan on using fantastical elements in these pieces to depict the way someone would see the world and how it changes.
What I try to express through my art is the fluidity of art and the human experience by using a diverse array of materials, to discover more around other people.