artist statement

 I’ve been told that colored pencil is one of the hardest and most time-consuming mediums to master, which is likely why I choose it as my medium. It satisfies my urge to suffer through extreme precision and accuracy in every detail. Photorealism is a natural fit for me, as I can find a certain zen-like state by creating an image through painstaking hours, days, and sometimes even weeks and months until the finished product is complete. I find satisfaction through this process.

I started drawing at a young age when my grandfather gave me the book, “Bird Portraits in Color,” by Thomas Sadler Roberts. I would sit for hours copying the beautiful paintings in the book onto lined notebook paper, attempting to make exact images of what was laid out on the pages of the book. Later in life my passion for wildlife art reemerged when I found myself living in the same small town in Minnesota as one of the artists featured in the book. Today my art has evolved from birds and wildlife to portraiture–of both people and animals–and industrial still life. I am always striving to create the perfect image of the things around me.