My home/studio is in Chattanooga, TN at the top of one of the hilly ridges that surround the city. In 2015 I moved to Chattanooga – phase 1 of my retirement plan. I was working remotely doing web design and marketing collateral for a construction industry company, so that made the move really easy. After retiring in 2017, I put my focus onto loosening up, creating more from the heart and experimenting with mediums to figure out what I enjoyed and what was just too much trouble or, in some cases, just too messy and labor intensive to be practical. I guess, after so many years of working digitally or having a designated dirty work space that I didn’t also live in… I tend to eliminate mediums that require their own room (or facility). Everything has to happen in one space and it has to be easy to clean up and put away.
So, what was a graphic design office has evolved into an ever-changing creative space that accommodates both digital and physical mediums – metal, clay, stone, paper, fabric, acrylic paint, metallic mediums and, of course, digital art. – And lots of shelves and containers around the room.
I work with a print-on-demand fulfillment company to produce the art prints on paper or canvas, and the printed merchandise (tee’s, tote bags, etc.). After so many years of either working for or with printing companies, and a few years of screen printing in my own studio, I am more than willing to let the pro’s do the demanding work of printing. I do print small things here in my studio but am holding out on acquiring a larger format printer. Not creating a cottage industry was one of main goals at this stage of life.
Techniques and Tools used to create my artwork
I create artwork either by modifying photos with Photoshop filters in layers so that I can augment or erase areas to hide or reveal the underlying layers. I also add hand rendered strokes to further enhance the image. So my photo-based pieces are actually multi-media. This is typical of the graphic design work process but since I started working with photos back in the 70’s, before Photoshop and computer graphics became dominant in the industry, I like carry traditional work flow techniques into my current work.
The digital paintings are created entirely using freehand strokes. For some I may create a vector drawing using Illustrator but some are simply hand strokes using the artist media brushes that are now available in Photoshop. These brushes simulate watercolor, oils, pastels, or various techniques like splatter and have lots of controls within each brush to get the exact look you are going for.
The letter art is a combination of artwork and textures created either with paint or pencils and then scanned or built directly in my software. I do not use AI to create art.
The paper these are printed on is archival quality, thick and almost velvety in appearance, so, the ink colors are very saturated and vibrant.
Custom Design or changes to existing pieces
I enjoy doing custom work, since that’s what I spent most of my career doing, so please contact me if there is something you would like customized or created from scratch!
Modifications to current work:
Please just ask! I tend to revisit my own art over and over and sometimes completely change it, sometimes use bits and pieces of different artwork to create a multi-media piece. That’s what graphic design really is, after all. So I have NO problem making mods to the artwork. Changing colors? Resizing? Just contact me with your idea and I’ll give you a quote for making the changes.
What about much larger sizes?
The print shop I use for art prints ordered directly from product pages in this website has standard sizes. If you want one of my art prints produced at a specific size or in a decorative frame, I can source it to a different print shop but it will have to be a special order that I format and upload. Pricing will be different since a more customized, higher end product may cost more, but I’m very cost conscious, so pricing will still be competitive. With that said, some of my older images were not created at a big enough size to be blown up really large, but you’ll have to ask. Newer pieces were probably created at high resolution for 24″x 36″ prints so they blow up to bigger sizes pretty well. Going small is never a problem. Either way, give me your specific dimensions and I’ll work with you to give you what you want.
Handmade Jewelry – in my Etsy Shop
For those of you who have been seeing my handmade jewelry pop up on Facebook posts over the last few years; my jewelry is still in my Etsy shop. There’s not much in there right now because I’ve been focusing on creating visual art for the last few months but once I get through this phase (or if the urge suddenly hits me) I’ll be rolling back into making jewelry. For know, I’m taking notes and making molds, when I have an idea but not actually creating much jewelry. I do enjoy switching gears though so the ideas will percolate up and more jewelry (or something else) will happen. That keeps things fresh.
