2005 was a year in which I was still trying to transition from the education I received at Lynchburg College and S.C.A.D. and applying that to portraiture and illustration. I wanted to be a comic artist since I was a child, but I loved being able to capture a sense of life and realism in the faces of the people I drew. My only comfortable experience with color was with traditional media, so I wasn't comfortable with using the computer and having Photoshop be a tool I could use properly (due to lack of knowledge and experience), so I tried coloring every chance I got.I wasn't comfortable inking at that point either so I generally tried to create very clean line art in order to have an easier time translating my work into color. I've always loved drawing superheroes so I wanted to try to bring them to life as much as I could.
I have always loved creating art with a pencil due to the control you have with it and the values that can be seen with it's use, so I gravitated towards it heavily. I could take it anywhere and felt as though I could do almost anything with it and it became my best friend on the road. The piece with the man sitting on the radio (hip hop legend Rakim) is a testament to my love of sketchbooks, pencils, and NYC, as that piece was drawn on the train on the way to my grandmother's house as I traveled from Manhattan to Queens. Many people and things I was involved with were my subjects, from my brother and my godkids, to celebrities I admired and respected, on to political statements and social commentary. I look forward to revisiting some of those subjects again in the future.
