Behind the Style
Bio
I was one of the smart kids when I was in school, the kind of kid that never had to study but managed to get good grades. I would get bored in class waiting for the slower kids to catch up and started to doodle in the margins of my notebooks or on the back of handouts. In 1st grade, I started drawing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Batman. I learned some basic concepts from a children's drawing program on PBS. It taught me how to draw 3D shapes like cubes, cones, and cylinders as well as how to add cast shadows to objects. In 5th and 6th grade, after Jurassic Park was released on VHS, I started drawing dinosaurs. My classmates started to comment on on my drawings and it raised my self esteem. All of the time I had spent doodling, combined with my natural analytical curiosity, was making my drawings look better. I started thinking about what kinds of things I could draw to impress people.
I was always a quiet kid and spent most of my time lost inside my head. In my freshmen year of high school, one of the guys on the wrestling team sat next to me after I had lost a match at a tournament and said, "I noticed that you never show any emotion. I doesn't matter if it's before, during, or after a match, your face always looks the same. It's like you're a zombie. You know what? From now on I'm just going to call you 'Zombie'." The nickname stuck and quickly spread among my friends on and off the wrestling team. By the time I was a senior, even the parents would cheer for 'Zombie' when I would step out on the mat. My nickname as well as my love of M. C. Escher had a profound impact on the subject of my drawings.
Most of my art education took place in high school. I started stealing printer paper from the classroom computers and experimentally drawing what I had learned in art class while the other teachers would lecture. They would write something on the chalkboard, I would copy it into my notebook, and then I'd continue drawing. I changed all my study halls to independent study in art classes. I learned a little about photography, video editing, Photoshop, drafting, and perspective drawing, but most of the time I would just draw or paint something, show it to the teacher, and get an easy 'A'.
When it was time for me to decide on a college major, I went with computer science because the term 'starving artist' didn't appeal to me. I did take an art class while I was in college, but it was too easy and I didn't learn anything. After college, I stopped drawing for the most part. I did do a couple of drawings, but the period between drawings lasted years. A few years ago I did start drawing and painting artwork for my friend and my friend's kids. It reminded me of how much I liked making art and now I'm trying to get back into it.