Serendipity. My high school art teacher in Oklahoma was an abstract expressionist who accurately guessed how I would develop as an artist. She brought in a well known illustrator, Stan Watts, who graduated from our school and made it big in Los Angeles. His stories had me mesmerized and I was hooked. My teacher's daughter went to Cranbrook with the person who become the design head for VCU which had great teachers from Cranbrook at the time.

For those who don't know, Cranbrook was the school most of the original Bauhaus members created after leaving Germany. VCU turned out to be great for my development, so everything kind of pointed the way to illustration. Forgot to mention this, but I also got to see a set of Folon prints that were done for an ad campaign for my dad's company, Conoco. It was so inspiring. The campaign was created by Charles Hively who is Publisher for 3x3 magazine. We both freaked out when we found this connection during a lunch interview. How's that for a small world?

It is illustration that is influenced early in my career by Saul Steinberg and later in my career by Jim Flora and other retro stuff. The work is more idea oriented which makes it easy to evolve the style. If you've seen my work from the beginning of my career to now, you will definitely see the evolution.

My process is pretty simple. I start with the synopsis of the article or project and break it down to the most basic concept the story or project is trying to communicate and build the idea from there. Usually I do quick basic shapes to compose rough ideas then retrace these ideas into readable sketches to give a client. I usually give 2 or 3 ideas but not much more because too much choice is not a good thing. You really should know what want to execute. The sketches are scanned and used as a template in Photoshop where I create the illustrations. I'm sure everyone sees Photoshop in different ways, but I see it as a virtual silk screen metaphor with infinite layers. I've always been about simplicity for whatever reason, so most of my compositions are simple and hopefully to the point for the idea. Even if the image seems more complicated, the idea might be "pattern" or something similar.


Quad core Mac Pro with a 23 inch cinema display, wacom intros tablet, razer mouse for the computer stuff. Tracing paper and pencil for ideas and a simple Canon lide scanner for scanning. On the road, I use a 15inch MacBook pro and recently, an iPad for sketches if I'm on the road with a Wacom Bamboo for iPad stylus. The program I love for sketches is Adobe ideas because the interface is similar to Photoshop so I can get around it quickly and it fits the way I like to make images.

Knock on wood, this has not been a real problem. I'm very aware my best time to create ideas is first thing in the morning so it helps that I know when ideas will come the easiest. I've found that doing ideas in the evening or late afternoon will take twice the time and usually the ideas are not as fresh. I'm a sponge guy, so I don't really sketch. Walking around the city, hanging out with other art friends, or traveling helps me absorb ideas that later pop up in work. The work will definitely have different color choices based on where I have been traveling.

Hard to say at this point of my career. It has gone much further than I imagined when starting out and it has been a great ride. Doing a beautiful animated advertising campaign would be awesome.

Lately, I've been listening to 70's style funk, and getting nostalgic for stuff like the Jam, B-52's and music from that period. The last thing I listened to while banging out a project is LCD Soundsystem. Girl Talk is also great.

The most important thing today is 1) create a website 2) Attend as many illustrator or design based events as possible 3) advertise consistently and keep trying to make the best image you have ever made. Don't try to compete against others because you can intimidate yourself. It is always possible to create the best image you have ever created and you will be surprised how quickly you can grow as an illustrator. When I taught, it was pretty easy to tell which students were going to make it. It wasn't the most talented ones for whom everything came easy. They hit a ceiling too early and stagnate later in their careers. It was the students who LOVED doing illustration and were absorbing everything possible to learn even more. Those were the guys and girls who went on to bigger and better things.