My father would often paint landscapes, on occasion he would do a portrait or two. He received most of his training through a mail correspondence course he paid for. ( I found many of these huge books and binders he used, and much of the information contained in those books is still viable today, I was profoundly surprised to find those books many years later). I believe this is why I still love the smell of turpentine and oil paint, every whiff brings on waves of memories as a child standing next to my fathers home made easel, watching him “smear paint around.”

It’s easy to see why I wanted to be an artist, I was surrounded by it. Yes, even my mother. She would spend months and months hand crafting quilted, crocheted blankets, all of which are still being used today by family members.

So what did I draw as a child? Cats and trees. Yeah, my best friend as a young child was a rattled old black cat that was almost as tall as I was. Both of my parents worked, so that left my siblings to watch over me, which went as well as you would expect if you left your child with two teenage kids. Few years passed and I started drawing from Mad magazine and other comics. I would try to draw everything my eyes could see. This usually meant Mad magazine and children’s books that dealt with animals (anthropomorphism). My father would often critique my work and his usual response was, it’s always easier to draw something that someone else has drawn (coping another artists drawings, art), the real challenge is drawing from life. As a kid I had no idea what the hell that meant, and i’m sure I had a contorted face of confusion as he said it.

Sometime around grade 6, I started taking TaeKwonDo lessons. This became my way of life, it was in everything that I did. I would often spend my time drawing “stick figures” in the corners of every paper I got my hands on. Living in a small town where the only activities that mattered where fishing, hunting, drinking and going to church, I was very much an outsider. Who would want to do martial arts when there are squirrels to kill or deer to hunt?..here it comes……Who would want to draw anything but wildlife, bluetick hounds with Orange Tennessee vests, and pretty flowers growing up a broken down fence with a dilapidated barn in the background.

The only thing that excited me about high school was the prospect of attending an actual art class. Something that would last more than 10minutes and offer me the possibility to learn and try new things. Fortunately I had a very talented and knowledgeable art instructor, Doris Murphy. Art classes ranged from “utility” to commercial art and painting specifics.

I was still practicing TaeKwonDo, six hours a day, 6 days a week was my average time. Actual classes where three times a week, usually lasted an hour. (for those purists out there, It was JiDoKwan, taekwondo and Judo, with cross training in boxing, and apkido) I did the extra 5 hours of training before and after class. As you could guess this was effecting my grades in a negative way. So my time spent training decreased by the time I was a junior in highschool, also multiple injuries and nerve damage helped me to accept less training.

So, my high school life consisted of TaeKwonDo, art, and whatever else I could fit in between those two. What did I draw during my time in highschool? I was fascinated by fantasy art (Frazetta.) and comic books, as well as vinyl record cover art. I loved the dragons, shiny plated armor, and mysterious landscapes, the half naked women were nice too. But all of this was considered “evil, ugly, devil worship, trash” you get the idea. From freshman year to senior year I would win some or all of the art awards, but every year it was the same comments. “why cant you draw something nice, pretty.” “Because that crap is boring and I see everywhere I look.” To me, fantasy art, illustration was new and unknown, and apparently new and unknown to many of the people in my small town. Keep in mind this is mid 1980′s, no internet like we know of today. The T.V. Only held my attention if the Transformers or G.I. Joe was on. It was clear to me that the no one was going to accept the art I was doing and it was always going to be considered as cliché. It didn’t matter if it was what I enjoyed and learned from, it didn’t fit anyone’s idea of what art should be. During my senior year, senior art show I was competing for a “scholarship.” I was picked and won just about every award offered. I was happy with that, but what really disturbed me was the “ It would be so nice if he could do something pretty instead of these ugly monters.” comment from one of the judges. As would be expected from a teenager, I immediately pulled all of my artwork down from the show, and declined the scholarship, (which was a whole $50.) This really upset many faculty members, how dare this petulant kid act in this way? It was never about being the best, it was about being accepted. That one incident changed the way I looked at all art for many years. If it didn’t contain perfectly constructed human anatomy, realistically rendered elements, it was not art to me. Abstraction held the same significance to me as dog puke on the sidewalk.

At this same time in my life, the TaeKwonDo school I was attending was closing down. The instructor and his wife could no longer support their growing family with the two schools they where running. They both needed full time jobs with benefits to support themselves and the family they wanted. It was a good run, over 8 years, Junior Olympics, hundreds of trophies, and medals. At the time I did not see it this way, my world was devastated. With the feeling that the world had abandoned me completely I was still searching for something. Not sure what it was, just felt like something was missing. Hey, I know, i’ll join the United States Marine Corps. Yeah, another bad idea, but I did it. I thought this would fill in the hole that the school closing would fill. What specialty did I choose? Infantry of course. Mainly because it would allow me to go into the reserves and have money for college. Yay art college! Not exactly. Over a year of living in the mud and walking until all of my toenails fell off wasn’t what I was hoping to gain.

By the time I finished all my training and was introduced to my company, who just returned from “desert storm.” My parents had somehow enrolled me into the local state university, with out me even being in the same state! I can not think of a word to describe the anger I felt. I did not want to attend a University, I wanted to attend a specific school that focused on art, illustration, graphic design etc. Yes, the University I was going to attend did have an art department, but in order to start taking the classes I was so excited about, I had to spend all my time taking remedial classes of English and Math, all of which did not count towards my final graduation credit.

So let me recap, 12 years of public education that I hated, 1 year of training in the Marine Corps as a rifleman and then immediate enrollment taking high school level english and math. Yeah I hated life.

I spent most of my G.I. Bill taking classes that would not help me graduate, I specifically remember taking one algebra class where the teacher told us constantly how easy the math is and how stupid we are. His exact words. He had a long pony tail and receding hairline with grey splotches here and there. I think he was later promoted to department head. I had to take that damn class 3 times before I finally passed it. I was only able to pass the class after talking with a graduate student( the teacher) who explained to me about test anxiety, and math anxiety. Yeah math anxiety is real, and it was made worse by teachers I had in the past.

So Finally! I can start taking art classes! My parents have a huge garage; half of it was turned into a TaeKwonDo studio (DoJang). I reformed this into my art studio. Complete with huge custom made drawing/drafting table made form a door, easel, shelves(that used to house trophies) a ratty old couch donated by my sister, television and radio/cd player. Oh and most importantly air conditioning and an old coca cola cooler form the 50′s that still works to this day. With the air conditioner running, loud metal music and a cooler stocked full of Corona’s I was ready to do some serious artwork!

Well, not so fast. First you need to take these basic courses before we can let you take the other classes.

At first that feeling of dread was creeping in, oh no, not this shit again. Thankfully these were incredibly fun and full of information that I knew I would use forever. At the time, the basic design and color theory classes where done back to back, one semester each. You start with basic design, then move to color theory. My teacher was Mr. Edmondson. The classes I took where his last, he was retiring as soon as he finished those courses.

I learned so much from those classes and was highly motivated to get started on the “real” classes.

Keep in mind that this is a University, so I was required to have a well rounded education, in addition to my major, which was Art/graphic design. So in addition to taking my art classes I had to balance in things like probability and statistics, american/british major authors, etc. It wasn’t all just art. Now that I look back, I’m glad I was able to take those other courses. I would be missing out on so much if I had not taken them.

My next class was basic drawing, the others were all “core” related classes. My instructor was Ralph Slatton, a new instructor who had been at the University for a year or less at the time. Ralph is a good friend and I have known him for years now, so what I’m going to say may be a surprise to those of you who know him now. Ralph was a strict and very direct teacher. There was nothing easy about his class. You had to work your ass off in and out of class if you ever wanted to get his attention and a high grade. I did both…..worked my ass off in and out of classes, and I gained neither his attention or a high grade hehe, true. Ralph gave me a C. It wasn’t until figure drawing and advanced drawing classes that I started to show improvements. Both classes were taught by Ralph at the time. I think I made B’s in both classes. I never cared about grades, for me, it was about being the best, learn learn learn and work hard. (It took me years to learn how wrong I was in my thinking.)

Up to this point, I had always used a computer, but mostly for gaming, Commodore64, Amiga 500, 3000 etc. It was after taking my first graphic design course with David Dixon that I saw the potential for what I could create with a computer. Using an ancient macintosh computers, with Photoshop2 and Aldus freehand I cut my teeth on digital art.

My first real work computer was a macintosh 8100/80. I loaded that thing with photoshop, freehand and Painter 2! I literally spent days without sleep learning the software and tinkering with art.

Few years pass and the University I’m attending starts a new program for computer animation, using SGI (silicon graphics) computers and alias wave front software. It was all centered around creating special effects and computer animation. For what reason I’ll never fully understand, this program was put into the technology department, not the art department. So if you went through that specific program, your degree would be a B.S. Bachelor of science. Not a Bachelor of Art or B.F.A. For a few years that was ok, the industry was still new and it needed people who knew how to use the software and computers, but it quickly became evident that just knowing how to use something doesn’t always mean you’re going to be creative or innovative.

Being an art major, I was not “allowed” to take the computer animation classes, if I did they would not count toward my graduation credit and I would essentially be paying out of pocket for a class that would not help me graduate. I didn’t care, I had to get involved. The classes consisted of showing up to class, and reading from a very thick book doing tutorials. Most of the tutorials in the books were incomplete or wrong. The results we got were nothing like what the author got. Frustrating is an understatement when you know you’re going to be graded on the completion of this assignment on the next day. The second, advanced class was centered around doing more tutorials from books and some work for local merchants in the form of commercials or our own ideas. The catch was, you were given insane deadlines. One week(5 days) to complete 10seconds of an animation. Seems simple now, but then it took 5 hours to render one pass. That’s not including the time it took to model, animate and texture something. All with little to no experience. But we managed to do it, by coming in after our other classes were over and staying in the “lab” for days at a time, sometimes with little to no sleep. We would often take turns watching the machines in-case our render crapped out or was killed by someone else who needed that workstation. We were not the only ones, this seemed to be the norm for any other school who was offering this type of program. Breed your students to think that it is normal and acceptable to work over time, with no sleep for days, for no extra pay, all for the glory of the project. That got old fast. My ability to retain anything that I was expected to learn was ZERO. My brain had enough, thankfully my body was in good enough shape that it could handle the stress.

I did learn some fun stuff that I took away, mostly technical that I could later use to experiment with.

I however did manage to get the classes I took transferred into my major of art, so it wasn’t a total loss.

I spent the last two years of my time at the University doing freelance work, Illustrations for online short stories, Printed Covers for DVD jewel cases that were sold through out the world, I used dreamweaver to make a new site just about weekly. It was all HTML and simple. I started a short lived website design business. The area I lived in was not ready to start hosting on the web, most people didn’t know what the web was. I was too busy with school and other freelance work to start an online advertising campaign so I ended the business and concentrated on graduating school.

I should mention, that for one semester I was working two full time jobs and attending school part time. I had two fulltime jobs because I wasn’t sure if the new one I took was going to work out. In the end it did not work out, so stayed with my current full time job until they laid off half of their staff. It was after this I started the website business.

It was around this time, 1998-99 that I met online, a very talented artist who was looking for work, he would post his works on AOL and I would stare at them slackjawed. I asked him what 3D application he was using to make these incredible renders. He told me he did it all by hand, painted. I told him he was full of crap. He then sent me a HUGE detailed drawing of the scene that he used as a basis. That shut me up. I just couldn’t believe anyone had this much talent and could not find a job. We both were playing a game made by a little known company then (bungie). The game was “marathon” and this artist would do these amazing environments based on the game.

The artist is Craig Mullins, www.goodbrush.com.

More to come, gotta cook dinner now…

Edit, adding in last of this story.

And the Journey continues,

Let me recap, TL;DR version.

Father, brother, sister, and mother where all very creative people. Grew up in a small town where watching the grass grow was the highlight of the day. I was the typical teenager who knew it all and wanted to go on a my own adventure. Had little to no choice in the college I would attend. Ended up spending too much money and time taking remedial math and English courses. Ended up working full time and attending school full time for a few semesters. I was doing freelance illustration and design online while I was finishing my degree. Ended up meeting a very influential artist using AOL, by chance.

Last two years of my undergraduate experience.

This Craig Mullins guy was actually talking to me about wanting to find more work and what he could do to get some money coming in. Even now that seems hard to believe. I’m afraid the only advice I could offer him was “ No clue, I’m just a college student who’s about to graduate. I’m in the same boat, but with way less talent and experience as you.” In the back of my mind I’m thinking, if someone like this can’t find a job I’m really screwed.”

Things started to get really busy for me, and paying for AOL wasn’t a priority. I lost touch with Craig for a few months. During my last year of college, as I was researching for ideas I ran across Craig’s website, goodbrush.com. He had mentioned something about “his friends at the Sijun Forums.” hmm..wonder what that is. After some digging around I found them. It was and still is, an online forum where artists can, talk, share ideas and critiques each others work. If you dig around you can still see the posts from samdragon(me) worthlessmeatsack, spoogedemon(Craig Mullins) and other very talented artists, one that comes to mind is Fredflickstone( Ron Lemen.) I learned more about art and technique in that one year of following the sijun forums than I did in all the time I had spent at college. At least I thought I did. I was just ready to move on, needed something to sate my hunger for knowledge. The forums did just that. The quality of my work skyrocketed. I had found the validation that I needed, “It’s ok to use photoshop or painter, or whatever to create art.”….I must add the caveat of, it’s ok if you have experience using the real materials, otherwise you’ll be stuck with just knowing how to operate the software. Software is just another tool for the artist to use. Not a solution or magic wand that will make you into a great artist.

I really wanted to land a job in the visual FX industry, in Hollywood. I attended various conferences, Siggraph being the biggest. Back then your demo reel had to be on VHS, DVD was still too expensive to burn at home and not everyone was using DVD to review work. Back then, being what? 12+ years?

So it wasn’t unusual to buy an entire case of blank 5 minute VHS tapes and spend a few days making copies of your demo reel, knowing that 90% of what you send through the mail ends up in the trash.

Siggraph was really nice, and the trick was to list yourself as “artist” on your name badge. If you listed yourself as student you where usually treated as filth or if you where lucky just ignored. My first siggraph, I listed myself as “student.” I had people flat out tell me, “ go away I don’t’ want to talk to you.” My favorite was the eyeroll and flippant wave of the hand to shoo me away. So yeah, second year I went I listed myself as artist. I was invited to private showings of software, had three bags full of swag and every single place I visited accepted my demo reel and resume. Did I ever hear back from anyone? No, my stuff was horrible. I knew how to use the software, but I did not know how to bring my ideas to life through the software.

Thankfully I found the sijun forums and I began concentrating on my graphic design and illustration skills again.

Graduation time came. In order to complete my BFA(Bachelor of Fine Arts) I had to exhibit my work for one week in the school gallery. The gallery was sectioned off into two separate areas, so two students or artists could exhibit at the same time. The show went off without a hitch, I received my pat on the back and congratulations for a nice show. The week was up and the show was taken down. I was done, all that was left for me to do was show up for a few more classes and it was all over.

I never attended my undergraduate ceremony. In my mind I had spent enough time and money there, I earned my degree, walking across a stage wasn’t going to make it any better or worse. Besides I needed the rest, weeks spent working day and night with only a few hours of sleep tends to make me tired. Also, the thought of spending another second on campus just made me nervous. I needed to get out of there and away from it all.

After spending a few months of sleeping and eating real food, I started doing art again, but this time it wasn’t illustration. I was making 3D models, animations and textures for an Unreal Tournament mod called “strangelove.” The originator of the mod lived in New York, so we used ICQ to chat to one another. (Al McElrath, if I remember correctly) I would make some first person weapons or new missiles to ride around on. It was actually a fun little mod. Enough to be recognized in an issue of maxim magazine. Al did all the scripting and helping me learn how to use the exporter and game engine.

I was really enjoying the whole “mod” scene. I was actually making games assets and then playing them in a real video game. It was all very exciting, until the student loan payments started to roll in. Yay deferment. A year passes by, no luck finding a job. A few college friends of mine landed some jobs in different states. But nothing they where working on interested me. A college friend of mine had just started a job in Indianapolis for a company called Sunstorm Interactive. The makers of Deer Hunter and Bird Hunter. Ick, more hunting shit that I had no clue about, but I needed a job and I was still hyped about the whole, make polygon, put polygon in engine thing. I begged and begged my friend to help get me hired there. I didn’t care if was crappy or if the pay was low, I just needed something.

I lucked out and was hired. My first real job! Yay.

I’m gonna save you (the reader) a lot of time here.

Get hired

Only make $24,000 a year before taxes.

4 months pass by, income tax guy tells me I’m below the poverty line so I get more money back.

I buy a couch. My apartment now consists of an inflatable mattress and a couch.

1month passes I get a raise to $35000 a year before taxes, and promotion to Lead Artist.

I buy a TV and move into a new apartment that’s further away form town and cheaper.

Most of the people I work with are awesome and will forever be remembered in a favorable light.

Others…Meh…

Around the two year mark, I get a promotion and I break $50k salary before taxes. Good thing since the truck I had just blew it’s engine. So the extra money went into a new car.

Things start to go “strange” at work. Legally I can’t discuss what exactly.

Morning meeting, we are told everything is fine the company is not closing.

Afternoon meeting, we are told to gather any small personal belongings, and leave; the company is now closing it’s doors. All other belongs will be placed into boxes and be available for pick up in a few days.

Things I’m not mentioning in detail include:

Spending three days sleeping under my desk to get schedules and asset assignments figured out and on track. I’ll stop there, I prefer to forget about most of what happened. Just put it down as a learning experience.

This was all kinds of wrong, but that’s “business.”

Collect unemployment while looking for a new job.

No one is hiring

Have to move back home (what a humbling experience that was)

Blame myself for the company closing, which is unrealistic but I did anyway.

Depressed for months.

Get a call out of the blue, a company named Vicarious Visions wants to interview me. Strange, I don’t remember sending them a resume… but I’ll take it!

Move to upstate New York

Repeat the pay scale game but this time it starts off around $40k instead of 23k Yeah big difference.

Moved to lead artist, no extra pay just more responsibility, that I happily accepted.

Receive pay increase for the hard work and dedication I’m doing.

Health starts to go down hill, spending too much time sitting on my butt in front of a computer screen.

I’ll stop here, much like my previous experience I would rather just remember the good stuff.

In all, my time at both companies did little to improve my artistic skills. Most of my time was spent doing what my job title dictates, leading other artists to make sure art assets are created with quality and on time. Predicting how long each asset would take to make and bring into the game etc etc.

What I do recall though, is how much I loved to show other artists new techniques. Teaching and sharing information was and still is a passion in my life.

So I figured why not make use of that desire. I ended up back home with my parents, so I did what I could to make the best of my situation I went back to school to earn my Masters degree. The idea was to earn my masters and then teach at a college.

Not much had changed since I graduated with my undergraduate degree. I was purged form classes multiple times because someone forgot to show that I actually paid for my classes. At one point all of my records where lost, they had no proof that I even attended a high school. They wanted me to get vaccinations that I had while I was in the Marine Corps, but had they had no record of this. I was told by a teacher that Red does not mean stop. I was told by a teacher that digital art is not art…I digress.

I did however learn some interesting facts:

I am more concerned with being the best artist I can be, and not “the” best artist.

If I remove myself consciously from the art making process I get better results, as my ego is no longer blocking me. No longer worrying about what others think of your art or how it’s made.

I love working in mixed media.

Abstraction is beautiful

Understanding/Mastering the basics of design and color theory is essential.

Good art has a voice.

Experimentation in art is vital to grow as an artist.

Sometimes it is a good idea to forget all the rules and theories, or try to break them when creating your art.

Talking about or even writing about your own art and ideas is not as easy as you think it is.

Students still look for magic wands, shortcuts, and secrets that will make them into instantly better artists.

When creating art, if you listen to music that has audible lyrics, even in a foreign language, your brain will always try to interpret that information. This interpretation disrupts your concentration and you are more likely to make mistakes or over look otherwise obvious problems. This is why you may often see glaring mistakes when you walk away and look at your work with “fresh eyes.” You are much better off to listen to music that has no lyrics at all.

If you tell someone a simple truth they refuse to believe it, it just can’t be that simple? See comment about magic wands and secrets.

Asking a graduate student who’s undergraduate degree is not in art to teach a basic design or color theory class is a horrible idea. Granted, much of design and color theory comes to us as an innate ability, someone who does not understand it should not be teaching it. There is a reason why they are called “foundational” classes, everything past that is built upon that foundational learning.

I really enjoy graphic design and working in printed media.

Drawing and painting are both mark making skills. This is why I often refer to what others may call a painting as a drawing.

I am fascinated with the use of line in art.

Sometimes the actual process of making art can become more important than the finished art work.

The practice and science of drawing by Harold Speed is an amazing book.

My old hardbound copy of Andrew Loomis’s book “Creative Illustration” is once again my most prized possession.

Joseph Campbell changed the way I look at everything, art, life, religion, you name it.

George Bridgman is/was a genius.

Style will develop over time and change over time as well. The reason we remember some artists by their style is because they were paid to maintain that specific style for long periods of time. Art is a lifelong learning process. If you continue to learn and grow as an artist, your style will evolve.

If I wasn’t fighting to stay in school I was researching or making new art. I once again revamped the old art studio in my parents garage, this time without the cooler full of beer. I would often have 4 to 6 piece of work going at the same time. I had so many ideas and “things” I wanted to try; working one idea at a time would not give me the results I wanted.

I was required to have a specific idea or theory I wanted to pursue while I working my Masters. This idea was to be the basis for all of my art that would eventually culminate into a written thesis and gallery show. What did I chose? Cats and trees of course! Well to be more specific, Zoomorphism and Anthropomorphism. The tree part came in the form of a few self portraits I did that are life sized prints. My work started off 100% traditional media, then moved into 100% digital. I took what I had learned from doing the mixed media works and expanded on that using digital tools. I have a powerful enough computer to create life size works at 300dpi. All of the prints for my show where Giclee, museum quality prints on a heavy paper. Basically means they will not fade or change color.

This time around, I attended my graduation ceremony. Only because I went through so much hell to stay in school I needed some form of closure.

Shortly after, I married my girlfriend of 3+ years. Now we travel around the states looking for a spot to possibly settle down. We are in no hurry for that though. Life is good, always room for improvement though.

My goals are straight forward, find a job environment that appreciates the hard work I do, hopefully teaching art at the college level. Pay off my student loans. Continue to create at least one new piece of art a day. It would be nice to personally thank people like Craig Mullins and Ron Lemen for helping me out and show me new ways of thinking when I needed it the most, even though they had no idea they were doing so.

The rest, I’ll just make it up as I go.

I will also do my best to keep a regular blog, as you can see by looking at the top, or bottom of this site, I belong to various social networking sites.  As I type this i am looking into various methods of being able to update most, if not all of these websites through my blog.

If you are looking for more examples of my work, good and bad, please explore my facebook, google+ and shadowness links at the top or bottom of this website.

I have trimmed down hundreds of images to only the best and made sure that the focus of the website is strictly on the image.

More to come when I get the time.