Exquisite Horror (2020)

Occasionally, when I’m running dry on material for my word art, I’ll take a step back and look up quotes about words themselves. There’s a lot of material out there! And much as I considered making a piece about Natasha Beddingfield’s “These Words”, I landed on an excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket:

“Words have no power to impress the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality.”

Once I had the quote, I dug through a pile of mats in my studio. Noticeably, I’ve been shy about incorporating color into my word art. Black and white is my comfort zone, but I wanted something that could help this pop a bit more if it were hanging on a wall. The navy blue 5 x 7 inch mat caught my eye, and the size allowed me to recycle a misprinted 4 x 6 greeting card made of watercolor paper.

Usually, I’ll pencil in the boundaries of my piece. For this, I used painter’s tape to temporarily secure the paper in the mat, then carefully navigated around the edges as I completed the piece. The opening of the mat left 3 x 4.5 inches of space to cover. I was able to finish this piece within a single day, probably within a couple of hours.

Is this piece available?

“Exquisite Horror” is available in my online shop.

Under The Sea (2020)

Much as I love the meditative repetition of my word art, there are times when I get frustrated with the rigidity of the process. This month, I’ve been experimenting with a pictorial technique that I’ve jokingly referred to as Keith Haring-lite. The shift to this freer, more joyful style may indeed have something to do with visiting the Museum of Modern Art, where I very nearly broke down in tears in front of Haring’s “Untitled” piece.

My concern with this technique is that it feels too derivative. It’s somewhere between imitation and emulation, and my hope is that it will evolve into innovation as time passes. It’s also possible that I’ll lose interest and abandon this approach in a few months! There’s only one way to find out.

Long-winded introduction aside, “Under The Sea” is the first completed piece in this series. I started drawing a fish, and to paraphrase my 3 year-old niece, I decided that it needed some friends. Soon, it was surrounded by more fish, an octopus, a mermaid, a sea horse, a starfish, a crab, kelp, and a clumsily drawn dolphin that’s wearing a party hat. The friendship mission was a success.

This piece was done on the back of a recycled, misprinted 4 x 6 greeting card made of watercolor paper. I used an oval mat as a guide for the shape of the piece, making my best attempt to keep the edges rough and avoid the borders. I’m extremely pleased with the resulting piece.

Is this piece available?

“Under The Sea” is available as a limited edition print in my online shop.

The original is not for sale.

Jubilee (2019)

After I was invited to participate in the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s 2020 exhibition “Obsessed: The Art of Nerd-Dom”, I decided to take this as an opportunity to create blatant, unapologetic fan art. The theme had me daydreaming about the various nerdy things I’ve embraced throughout my lifetime. The X-Men immediately came to mind.

Many children living in the 1990s went through an X-Men phase, but I took things to the next level. My uncle would gift me Marvel trading cards every time that I saw him, and I would sit in my bedroom carefully studying the strength, intelligence, speed, and other abilities of every hero or villain.

I didn’t do anything useful with that information. In fact, I would completely ignore it while playing with the action figures, choosing instead to evade attacks by jumping very high and staying there.

As you might suspect, I was also a fan of the animated series that aired from 1992-1997. Beast was my favorite character by a landslide. Constantly, I would jump into pools imitating the way he jumped in one of the franchise’s many video games. I imagine that my friends found this very annoying.

Despite my love for Beast, I decided to base my piece for “Obsessed” on spunky teen shopping enthusiast Jubilee. I thought the bright colors of her costume would pop in a sea of black and white text, and perhaps more importantly, I needed a safe space to show my appreciation for this line she delivers in the animated series:

“Does a mall babe eat chili fries?”

To complete this piece, I mapped out a bold, stylized Jubilee design in my sketchpad. Once I got the colors and proportions right, I cut out my original drawing and traced it onto an 11 x 14 inch piece of watercolor paper. I penciled in the rest of the design, then filled it in with colored pencil—meticulously layering and blending until the surface of the paper was no longer visible. To prevent smudging, I sprayed the piece with a matte fixative and waited for it to dry.

Then, as usual, I rotated the sheet and filled it in with the phrase above. I tried to vary my lettering choices to provide some extra texture in the background. The entire piece took several days to complete, and despite being the first piece that I started for the show, it wound up being the last one that I finished.

It was then matted, framed, and shipped off to be displayed at the Port Angeles Main Library from January 11 to March 15, 2020.

Is this piece available?

“Jubilee” is available as a print in my Redbubble and Society6 shops.

The original is still available. Please contact me if you’re interested.

But My Mom Says I'm Cool (2019)

In my submissions for the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s 2020 exhibition “Obsessed: The Art of Nerd-Dom”, I wanted to include a famous nerd from pop culture. My original list included Steve Urkel, Tina Belcher, Daria Morgendorffer, Velma Dinkley, Squidward Tentacles, and mononymous Peanuts character Marcie.

Then, a friend suggested Milhouse Van Houten from The Simpsons. Though my affinity for this character wasn’t as strong, everything clicked into place when I did some research and uncovered this quote from the season five episode “Burns’ Heir”:

“But my mom says I’m cool.”

With a quote selected, I set out to find a depiction of Milhouse that fit this sentiment. I doodled a few of my own renditions in a sketchpad, and when I finally got it right, I cut out the drawing with an X-Acto knife and traced the outline onto a piece of 9 x 12 watercolor paper.

From there, I copied the outline lightly in pencil, filled it in with layers of colored pencils, and blended until the surface of the paper was no longer showing underneath. I outlined the drawing with a black Micron Sakura ink pen, then sprayed it with a matte fixative to prevent smudging.

Once dry, I rotated the paper and repeated the phrase above until the page was fully covered. Because of the drawing’s bright colors, I took some liberties with varied lettering to provide a more dynamic, textured background.

It was then framed, and shipped off to be displayed at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center from January 11 to March 15, 2020.

Is this piece available?

“But My Mom Says I'm Cool” is available as a print in my Society6 shop.

The original is still available. Please contact me if you’re interested.

Candy (2019)

I spent a lot of time thinking about (and researching) the word “nerd” as I prepared for the Port Angeles Fine Art Center’s “Obsessed: The Art of Nerd-Dom” exhibition. When the Nerds mascot popped into my brain, it took me a few days to realize it would pair perfectly with the lyrics to Mandy Moore’s 1999 hit single “Candy”.

Beyond this song’s bubblegum pop sheen, there’s a dark tale of unhealthy obsession. “I’m so addicted to the loving that you’re feeding to me,” Moore sings on the first verse, before continuing later that her, “Body’s in withdrawal, every time you take it away.” It’s almost alarming until you realize it’s the type of melodramatic metaphor you’d expect from a teenager.

Ultimately, this is a piece about Nerds and obsession, rather than a piece about nerdy obsessions.

To complete this piece, I began by doing sketches of the Nerds mascot. Once I got the color and shape right, I cut out the drawing with an X-acto knife and traced the outline onto a 5x5 inch square of paper. I penciled in a quarter inch border of white space on the edges.

Next, I replicated the drawing, then filled in the tongue and body with different shades of pink colored pencil. Once blended, I opted to outline the drawing in black colored pencil, rather than ink pen. This emphasized the cartoony quality of the image and made it pop a bit more on the paper.

From there, I sprayed the drawing with a matte fixative to prevent smudging. Once dry, I rotated the paper and began repeating the lyrics to “Candy” until the full square was full. I decided to go with a more uniform, simple text style to avoid upstaging the drawing.

It was then framed, and shipped off to be displayed at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center from January 11 to March 15, 2020.

Is this piece available?

“Candy” is available as a print on INPRNT, Society6, and Redbubble.

The original is still available. Please contact me if you’re interested.

My Boo (2018)

“My Boo” is the first piece I completed in which words formed a shape or symbol. The idea popped into my head as I was dancing around to Ghost Town DJ’s 1996 single “My Boo”, back in our apartment in Seattle. All of a sudden, I realized that I needed to compile the song’s lyrics in the shape of a ghost.

To complete this piece, I grabbed an 11 x 14 inch sheet of vellum paper, then measured out a rectangle in the center of the page. The rectangle was then shaped into a ghost through a combination of freehand drawing and careful measuring with a ruler.

Once the shape was in place, I rotated the paper and filled in the outline with a black Sakura Pigma Micron 005 pen. As soon as I filled the space, I carefully erased the pencil lines. To my horror, I discovered that I mixed up one of the words in the chorus, and I’d have to do the piece all over again.

This might sound like an overreaction, but it changes the entire meaning of the song! Version one (right) includes the wrong lyric: “I want to be your lady, baby”. Version two (left) includes the correct lyric: “I want to be your lady, maybe.”

To correct this mistake, I grabbed a piece of wax paper and traced the ghost on the original piece. I cut out the shape with an X-Acto knife, then used it as a stencil to retrace the shape onto a new sheet of paper. Then, I repeated the process all over again until the new piece was completed.

At one point, I wrote “baby” again by mistake, but I crossed it out and embraced the error. It was like a little Easter egg, a reference to the piece’s unique history.

“My Boo” appeared at Salon Bar-Kon as part of the Capitol Hill Art Walk. it was one of the first pieces to sell in that show, and in a pleasant surprise, the original version with the wrong lyrics wound up selling, too. I’ve affectionately named that version “My Bad Boo”.

Is this piece available?

This piece is no longer available.