ILLUSTRATION

> GROUP ARTSHOWS

In 2016 I joined a Boise artist collective known as Swell as a way to gain more access to art shows and to challenge myself to make more art. Unfortunately, it went the way of many things during the pandemic and disbanded, but not before providing me with 4 years worth of opportunities to create. The following are pieces I created as a member of Swell.

32 Cells - Ethereal
Starting off with a spooky one. I always look forward to creating a piece for the Old Idaho Penitentiary 32 Cells show as it mixes two of my interests, history and art, add in a theme and the challenge is set. This year’s theme was Ethereal, or a collection of ghost stories from around the site. Mine was a pretty simple story… that had my skeptic side raising an eyebrow,... a visitor who was a part of a ghost hunting team filming at the historical site was in one of the solitary confinement cells alone. He says as he was walking across the middle of the space he felt something touch the top of his bald head. What do you think? Do you believe it?

Curious Media - Curious Nonsense
When asked to create something nonsensical and fun that is family friendly my mind sort of went blank. And within that blank space swam the first glimmers of ‘Fog Fish”. It is a piece based off of a favorite holiday Doctor Who special where the Doctor finds himself on a planet where the atmosphere is thick enough for fish… and something a bit more ominous swim through the air. I just loved the image of little gold and yellow fish floating around a street light.

ARTcade - AOC Tomb Raider & StreetFighter RBG
Game themed art show and silent auction in an arcade bar. I participated in this show two years in a row. The first year I created a mashup with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Street Fighters Chun-Li (My favorite character to play as). I had a blast creating it and so when the show came back for a second year, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Laura Croft Tomb Raider were the perfect match up.

32 Cells - Aug 2020

A rough year that sadly saw the end of my lovely Swell Artist Collective. This year's 32 Cells show was all about the women inmates of the Old Idaho Penitentiary. And the woman I was assigned was arrested for car-jacking a man with four other women and stealing his wallet. As they say, crime doesn’t pay, and this one definitely didn’t as the man's wallet only contained 3 dollars. 

There is a lot I would do differently if given this project today, but I was working on trying to be more graphic in my illustration style as well as stick to a tight color palette, I had been reading quite a lot of Mike Mignolia’s Hellboy and had been chasing his iconic drawing style all summer. That being said, I really do enjoy several of the frames of this little comic.

Samhain - Oct 2019

A piece created for a Swell Artist Collective group show at the metaphysical gift shop and gallery of Altar Egos in Boise. All the pieces for the show were created with the spooky theme of the season. I chose to explore the Headless Horseman of the Ichabod Crane story, because I had grown up on the Disney version of the story and always thought he was one of the scariest villains. But even scary monsters must have a soft spot, so surely that spot must be the horseman's horse as it has been cursed just as much as him in this whole ordeal. 

RePop - School Knight Rider Oct 2019

This was a busy month for art creation, not only was this my third show in about a month and a half’s time, but I was also drawing each day for my first ever Inktober. (Check out my Inktober page to see more). So, needless to say there were a few shortcuts taken… did I watch Knight Rider as a kid, no not really, I was busy watching the Adam West Batman reruns on channel 20. But as an avid fan of pop culture I’ve picked up several properties without diving too deep into them. And who doesn’t love a fun little pop culture pun? So here you have Kit as a Big Wheel trike and a cute-sie kid version of David Hasselhof.

32 Cells - Book Wyrm Aug 2019

Another year another 32 Cells show. This year's theme was sports and recreation, so each artist was given a writeup about how their assigned inmate spent their free time. I had two, one an artist the other an author, and they chose to work on bettering themselves and their fellow inmates by creating a full-blown reading course. That course was then used all across the state and eventually the country for inmates learning and struggling to read.

I chose to represent the battle against illiteracy as a giant fearsome snake or Wyrm, as I had been tiptoeing into the world of D&D. You can also see a bit of my old drawing habits before I became much more digital. Everything was drawn out by hand then traced onto little pieces of tracing paper and then scanned into my Mac where I then painted them digitally in Illustrator. That process has thankfully been dropped as I can now just draw directly into Procreate. 

32 Cells - Origins Aug 2018

2018, the year of my deep dive into Doctor Who, and I never looked back. I loved the way the Doctor always did his very best to save the people in the show and I thought the story of my inmate this year would have torn his two hearts into pieces. My inmate was the youngest person ever at the Old Idaho Penitentiary at the ripe old age of 10. He shot a man and killed him as a way to save his father who had drunkenly started the bar brawl. I just know had the Doctor been aware of this little boy's story, he would have done everything in his power to change history. 

You can also see a bit more of my old tracing paper process. It helped me figure out where each element needed to be in relation to each other as I was drawing them… I also nerded out and tried to learn a bit of Gallifreyan (the circular alien language of The Doctor).

Seussed Invitational Artshow - Dec 2017

A very Seussy Christmas! There has always been something that has stuck with me about the story of the Starbellied Sneeches. The idea of racing each other into the next trend was idiotic to me even as a little kid. Plus, who would ever want to remove a star on your belly?! I also had the chance to really dive into some Dr. Seuss drawing style research. I always thought my style vaguely resembled his and to this day I feel like when drawing new things I fall into his similar cartoony style. 

Freaky Friday the 13th - Oct 2017

Swell Artist Collective put together a Friday the 13th show that was held at the art print shop Evermore. Everyone made small pieces to fit into the limited space and one of the artists brought his tattoo gun and chair and guests could get quick little flash tattoos themed around the spooky holiday. My piece was about putting a spin on classic horror movie tropes. What if the monster and the victim somehow body swapped?

This was also the piece that caught the attention of a local marketing agency and would lead to me working with CLM Marketing on their Western Idaho Fair 2018 and 2019 ad campaigns (check out my character design page to see what I created for them!). Proof that you just have to keep putting stuff out into the world. 

32 Cells - Escape Aug 2017

My first ever 32 Cells show AND my first time ever attempting to create a comic. I really do swing big when I get a certain idea in my head. Not only was this piece all hand drawn but was also then scanned in and meticulously pieced back together in Photoshop where I edited each page and added text. It was such a huge learning experience. But one I really did enjoy the process of. Which is probably why in Oct 2021, I would set myself the goal of creating a comic page a day for that year's Inktober challenge (check out my Inktober page to see how that turned out).
↓ tap thumbnails to open in lightbox view ↓

Endangered Species - Mar 2017

My first official Swell Artist Collective show peice. Each person was assigned an endangered animal in Idaho and created a piece around that animal. My animal was the Black Rosy Finch and I remember being so excited about this piece and also a little worried someone would call me out on what a finch had to do with a Doc Martin boot. The answer is… absolutely nothing, I thought the pink patches on the little birds looked a little bit punk rock and so gave him a punky boot to sit on. Still lifes have always been tough for me, as giving the work some sort of story is much harder to do. As an illustrator at heart I HAVE to have some sort of story in each piece