About Me

I’ve written many a bio in my 21 years of published work, and all of them together don’t necessarily add up to the whole. I’m an illustrator, a fine artist, blogger, sculptor, fiction author, non-fiction content writer, graphic and web designer, web developer, social media specialist, database developer, programmer, and so many more things that it will bore you even more than you are already.

In essence, I am either a jack of all trades or a renaissance man.

I find that I want to know everything, to try everything, to be everything. That’s not easy, of course, especially when my nature is to try to be good at each and every thing I try. But in life, I just need to put myself in as many strange situations as I can, and hope that my addled brain can work itself back out. My favorite quote, from Teddy Roosevelt, speaks directly to this:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Maybe I just don’t like feeling that I’m the gray, cold or timid soul. So, I let my interests, and my unique vision, lead the way.

Client: Apex Publications Cover Illustration and Jacket Design

Publications and Shows

I've been published a lot over the years, and have been a speaker for various things. See all of those things here.

Writing

I’ve been writing since the dark ages, when I had to type on an old typewriter. I know some of you kids haven’t ever seen a typewriter, so here you go:

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I don’t know, it’s kind of smiling at me. I didn’t even try to make that creepy.

From 2010 to 2014, I wrote almost monthly blogs for publisher Apex Book Company, about my life as an artist. Many of those can be found on my writing website here, and some of them, like my discussion of misogyny against Millicent Patrick and Artemisia Gentileschi, were quite popular.

From 2014-2019, I interviewed the cover artists each month for Apex Magazine. Those interviews can be found here, and I’ve been told that people like them due to my unique artistic view. Being a cover artist myself, I ask the questions that I want to know from the art side of things, not just a by-the-numbers interview.

I’ve also written business articles, blogged for local companies, wrote about historical figures, even fiction and poetry. Swing by my writing site, and let me know what you think.

Half of my current day job is writing non-fiction news articles for the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering at Colorado State University. Read those amazing articles here.

Illustration work

I’ve been an artist since the late 90’s, and a published illustrator since 1999, when a couple of magazines featured my work at the same time. Since then, I’ve completed many works for various publishers, from small micro-press publishers up through larger publishers like Subterranean and Cemetery Dance.

I’m lucky enough to have had a piece chosen for the prestigious Spectrum annual, a yearly competition and book for the best in contemporary genre artwork. The artwork was originally for Wicked Hollow #1, a small press magazine, and is titled “Fetal Position”. It appeared in Spectrum 9, and somehow was the only grayscale piece for 20 pages in any direction.

Since then I’ve done work for Subterranean Press’s Night Visions 12, part of the prestigious line of Night Visions books stretching back to the 1980’s.

I did three covers and signature sheets for three of the Maelstrom imprint of Thunderstorm Books: Six Days by Kelli Owen, and The Rising: Deliverance and A Gathering of Crows, both by Brian Keene. I also created foil hardcover designs for the first Maelstrom set, as well as for the 2011 set.

I’ve worked quite a bit with Cemetery Dance Publications as well, one of the premier genre publishers. I’ve been in their magazine several times now, including new work for stories by Peter Straub and Peter Crowther. I’ve also done work for a few of their books, including Dark Delicacies, T.M. Wright’s Eyes of the Carp, and Brian Keene’s Scratch (a video promo of some of the Scratch art is below).

Graphic design

I’ve been a professional graphic designer for as long as I’ve been an artist. The projects I’ve worked on are extremely varied, and I even have awards for my work.

I’ve worked on newspapers, book and magazine covers, posters, signs, t-shirts and other screen-printed materials, and a lot more things that I’ve probably forgotten. I’ve worked with many, many software programs, becoming an expert with Adobe Creative Suite.

I’m extremely knowledgeable with Adobe Photoshop, having used it since version 4 on just about everything you can imagine. From the technical color-correcting side of things, through the expanded use and creation of brushes and techniques, I’ve done an enormous amount with the program. Most of the art you’ll see on my website was done with Photoshop.

If you check out my Graphic Illustration section, you’ll see that I do a great deal of vector illustration as well. Much of that work is highly detailed, often for construction companies showing off their latest projects. Those projects are not only very detailed, but they must also be very accurate, as the artwork will be published on t-shirts and other materials in front of their peers.

Aside from numerous traditional publishing projects like print ads and page layouts, I’ve also used programs like Adobe InDesign for promotional posters, and even directional signs for major events.

Web design, multimedia and development

Since 1998, I’ve also been a web designer and developer. My last several day jobs have been for the web, and are just as varied as my print work. Starting out working for a large newspaper in Fort Collins, I’ve also worked for a large scuba certification agency, a student media organization at Colorado State University, and a national nonprofit.

In early 2002, I was awarded the Colorado Press Association’s Special Multimedia Award for Flash animated presentations of news topics, for an online presentation on the Big Thompson Flood. Mere days after the attacks of 9/11, we were also praised by the Associated Press for our online coverage of that event, including the multimedia work created for it.

In 2016, I was awarded the best web site award from Region 9 of the Society of Professional Journalists, for my work with the nonprofit student media organization at Colorado State University. In late 2016, the same website is up for the SPJ national award. Having created their entire infrastructure over my four years there, it’s great to get recognition for my efforts.

The nature of my day jobs has been focused more on technical work than design, so much of my new knowledge is with programming and IT work. To some extent, that helps me understand more of where projects need to come from, especially if they are multimedia or web. Even just doing design work, that knowledge helps me see where things are going to end up, and take those technical concerns into account before designing anything.

As it is, half of my current day job is designing websites and communications content for the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering at Colorado State University. See my kick-ass design skills here.

A last bit about me

Really, I just want to go through life being creative at the things that I do. I’m interested in photography, art, video, animation, anything that will let me create and expand on my unique visions further. At the bottom line, I just want to have fun. Also, I tend to write and write and write and…