Literal Studio Update

I've moved in and then some.

Whoever has to paint over that ink on the walls at the end of the year is going to hate me.
 

Artist Statement "Final Draft"

My goal in my work is to connect to people through stories. I use my characters and narratives to turn people inward towards their own lives; my drawings may remind them of a person, a place, an event, or an experience or emotion.  I use ink and Photoshop, which are clear, easy to read, and familiar.  This is one way in which my art evokes the feel of comics, cartoons, video games, and other geek-culture influences from my childhood and today.  I gravitate most noticeably toward the aesthetic of Japanese manga, applying various elements of this aesthetic to nearly all of my work.

As I've experimented with new ways of utilizing my interest in cartooning, I began creating backwards fairy tales.  These are several well-known stories, many made popular by the ubiquitous animated Disney films from the 1930's to the present, which I have retold simply by inverting.  Extracting the major plot elements, I reverse the order, and thus create an entirely new tale. The results are comic-like drawings which utilize immediately familiar visuals to first draw the viewer in, and then subvert expectations as the viewer notices that the known story is somehow off.  My new fairy tales offer something that is at once accessible and off-beat.  In these pieces, I play with the gray area between the comfortable and familiar, and the strange and unexpected. 

The Backward Princesses

I started work on taking the princesses of my various backwards fairy tales and developing them more as characters ("Princess" here referring to any character typically included in the merchandising of the Disney Princess franchise).

 Also redid the Rapunzel backwards fairy tale:

 And worked on out for the Little Mermaid:

Here's a confession that won't earn me many friends:  I always hated the Little Mermaid (the Disney version, at least-- that's the only one I can really speak for).  A girl who sacrifices her home, friends and family for a man she glimpsed once is not a great example for the younguns.  And hey, let's not forget how important it is to woo men by being silent.  But I think that's why I so thoroughly enjoyed rewriting Ariel's story.  
/rant.