The Truth About Dragons is my debut picture book as both author and illustrator, published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers, about the anxiety and excitement of a new experience, represented by a castle full of dragons that aren’t quite what they appear.

Thornlight is a wonderful adventure story written by Claire Legrand. It is a worthy companion to Foxheart, and was an excellent opportunity for me to draw castles, unicorns, and a baby griffin! Shown here is the cover, back cover, frontispiece, and a few interior spots.

This Map of the Vale for Claire Legrand’s Thornlight was a ton of fun to fill with houses and buildings and mountains and caves, and resulted in my most detailed map to date!

Kate Milford’s The Thief Knot is the third mystery in the Greenglass House series. It also happens to be my favorite read of the three. Kate creates such magical spaces in which to illustrate. Dusty bookshops, vintage figurines, curious knots, and all the games and puzzles one could hope for wrapped up in an epic story. Illustrating this series has been an exciting ride. I do hope the cover illustration makes you want to know what happens inside.

Lena Coakley’s beautiful and haunting fairy tale, Wicked Nix, is full of wonderful opportunities for black-and-white interior art. These images were created digitally with an digital ink pen in Photoshop using a Cintiq.

Wicked Nix is a magically wonderful fairy tale by Lena Coakley, written in a beautiful and timeless style. Creating this cover was a challenge in capturing intrigue without giving away too much of the story. Hand-lettering for this title was created by the amazing Alyssa Nassner.

I have created many maps in my day, mostly for older middle grade and YA tales. This is my first map for the younger set., and it was fun to create something accessible so that early elementary readers can get their bearings in this fairy tale world.

It was a wonderful honor and experience to create a new cover for the American edition of Tom’s Midnight Garden, by Philippa Pearce. The book was written in 1958 when it won The Carnegie Medal for best children’s title, and is a still an intriguing and wonderful read. The challenge for this cover was to give it an update without losing the story’s classic and timeless nature.

Kate Milford's award-winning Greenglass House is back as the setting of another wonderful mystery. I feel lucky to be a part of such a timeless and intriguing series. I illustrated the jacket as well as its 36 interior illustrations.

I was thrilled to be asked to illustrate the jacket for Ammi-Joan Paquette's The Train of Lost Things. A wonderfully magical story about a boy's love for his dying father and his journey to the mythic Train of Lost Things, attempting to capturing the wonder of this book (as well as fitting in all of the "things") was a welcome challenge. 

This quirky adventure novel by McKenna Ruebush has all of the elements an illustrator could want. Puddles and portals to other worlds, a magical subway system, sad dragons, a tree that yawns butterflies, and falling stars all come together in a suspenseful story about a young girl named George. I even had the chance to draw a secret second cover under the book jacket!

Enter A Glossy Web by McKenna Ruebush has many opportunities for drawing intriguing details. These are some of the graphite interior illustrations that appear inside the book.

This magical debut by Sarah Jean Horwitz has it all. A book about an aspiring inventor and magician's apprentice (full of fairies and animatronic cats) is an adventurous read and an illustrator's dream. I was lucky enough to bring this book to life with a cover that hints at the very different worlds at odds in this thrilling tale.

This map of The Star Lands of Long Ago will appear in the wonderful book Foxheart by Claire Legrand. This magical book takes the reader through specific and colorful spaces and places throughout. I was lucky enough to draw this map for the book, adapted from a sketch by the author herself. I enjoy maps and the fact that details can be quite useful when drawing and appreciating them. For this map, I worked with a very sharp pencil, filling in tiny towns and fitting this image all on an 8.5x11" sheet of paper.

The cover and back cover illustrations for Claire Legrand's fantastic Foxheart. This story of an orphaned girl who names herself Quicksilver and goes on a quest to save her world from the Wolf King is full of magic, mystery and humor. It was created in layers of graphite drawings and digitally colored.

This drawing of Foxheart's daring young heroine who calls herself Quicksilver and the story's seven fearsome wolves is printed as the book's frontispiece.

The brilliant Karen Cushman's first fantasy title, Grayling's Song is a wonderful and magical coming-of-age adventure featuring a girl with silver hair named Grayling and a magic mouse named Pook.  

Kate Milford's wonderful book Greenglass House has received amazing reviews since it hit the shelves. I was lucky enough to create its cover and black-and-white interior images. The book is suspenseful, beautiful, and nostalgic, so I executed a more graphic style that feels like an old woodblock print for the cover, and I had fun with the book's intricate interior chapter imagery.

Graphite and paper collage 

The Society of Seekers is an adventure story I'm developing about a secret society of unsuspecting initiates expecting to be welcomed into a high-status social group. They quickly realize that the society elders and their state have other plans. Drafted as Seekers for their power, pride, and pedigree, these unlikely heroes face both epic battles and solitary wars.  Perilous puzzles, unlikely magic, and an army of giant rabbits set the stage for a tale of secrets, struggles, vanity, and the search for things which cannot be seen.  These portraits set the stage for a story to come.

Drawings originally created for a solo show at Gallery Nucleus.

This sketchbook drawing was created for the Month of Fear blog, run by the talented Kristina Carrol. The prompt for the week was masks. I started this little image of a girl looking at a mask, and added to the drawing from there. 

These jewelry pieces are part of a personal experiment designing products for a story I'm writing based on The Society of Seekers. Printed lasercut wood mixed with antique bronze findings come together in my first collection of warrior adornments. The scarves were printed on cotton voile and display warrior patterns created from a developed catalog of society symbols.

Jewelry is for sale in my Etsy Shop!

Graphite and Spraypaint

This piece was created for the Harry Potter exhibition at Gallery Nucleus. The piece is an image of Cho Chang relying on her patronus (a swan) in a time of need. There are hints at magic and the popular series in the image. The Golden Snitch in her hair, wands coming out of the battleship in lieu of cannons, and secret code messages adorning the flags all add narrative clues.

I have created many screen prints with a narrative theme inspired by legend, myth, folklore, and fairy tales. These limited-color and limited-run prints were sparked by exploring both popular and obscure stories from around the world. Some were pulled by me and others were pulled by the talented and detail-oriented folks at VGKIDS.

I enjoy creating repeat patterns, and this one, called Rococo Wilderness, is probably my favorite. I enjoyed adding a cast of creatures and characters to traditional wallpaper forms to create something that feels old and new at once. I like the idea of creating patterns that can be decorative and still manage to tell a story. This piece has been printed on wallpaper, shirts, wrapping paper, as well as screen printed as a limited-edition art print in and on many different colors and materials.

I was thrilled to be a part of Cloudy Co's sold-out screen-printed Calendar of the Apocalypse. The talented David Huyck art-directed the project, bringing together 12 artists to depict an apocalyptic scenario using the same screen-printed palette.

Graphite

This series of small personal drawings depicts female warriors in various settings, often posing for the artist, and documenting a moment in each of their journeys. The following images show my warriors in sorrow, resolve, reflection and pride. Created in my sketchbook and on scrap paper, I am sometimes compelled to obsess over my favorite doodles, turning them into more polished final works like the ones in this collection.

The Secrets of the Manor historical fiction series published by Simon Spotlight follows a lineage of sisters on their adventures. I illustrated the covers for the American and English manor stories. Each cover features a portrait and setting and were designed to appeal to the historical fiction market. The images are graphite drawings which were digitally colored.

Along with the 14 original paintings I created for my solo show Melancholia, I designed these two four-color limited-edition screenprints for sale during the exhibition. 

These wooden, laser-etched Society of Seekers pins were spearheaded by Gallery Nucleus for my Vanity of Empire solo show. The pins were created from a handful of my developed catalog of seeker symbols and signs and presented alongside the exhibition. hey are still available for purchase on the Gallery Nucleus website.

Handmade to Sell is a wonderful resource by Kelly Rand (and the team at Hello Craft) for budding and professional crafters and artisans looking to sell their artistic wares. This volume has plenty of practical advice for new businesses. I had the opportunity to illustrate the cover and over 90 interior images. This project was tons of fun to illustrate for two-color printing. I adopted a flat graphic style to enhance their content and support the aesthetic of the Hello Craft brand.

Ink and Digital Color

These spirit animal totem images were inspired by museum masks of Inuit tribes. Each animal symbolizes a different set of traits that the owner may seek to cultivate. These tiny icons of luck were made to be printed to have the most impact as 1" plastic charms. They were printed, lasercut, and sold as necklaces in boutiques and galleries.

Melancholia was the title of my solo gallery show at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, California. The paintings are acrylic and collage with an oil-based aged varnish. The series takes place in an alternate world of bleak opportunities, where children must rule and resources are scarce.

Whitney Sherman's exciting and inspiring book Playing with Sketches is a hands-on and fun approach to drawing that profiles the processes and techniques of many contemporary working illustrators. I was thrilled to be a part of the book by showing  two different exercises - one exploration of shape and collage and another focused on wordplay.

This record cover for the alternative folk band Arlo Aldo was a lovely chance to play with traditional and digital drawing and painting methods. The piece is called "The Three Fates" and shows Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos spinning, allotting, and cutting the tiny lift rider's fates. 

This is a little daemon riding on a gryphon I started doodling in my sketchbook. I liked where it was going, so I finished out the portrait. 

It has been an honor to be a part of the wonderful greeting card collection at  Red Cap Cards. Hal Mertz and Carrie Gifford curate an extraordinary group of narrative illustrators and create beautifully printed and accessible artwork to share.

First created for the 5-year anniversary show at Gallery Nucleus, this image evolved from an urge to draw two things I most enjoy painting : long hair and labyrinths. This acrylic piece quickly evolved into my own little minotaur myth. This painting has also been in PLANSPONSOR magazine and is the cover image of the memoir Adopted Reality by Laura M. Dennis.

This image was a personal experiment in media. I used grey paper and gouache to block in the color shapes and used graphite for the drawing and its details on top. I'd like to experiment with this technique more to see how I might be able to add more life and color into my drawings.

These images were created for the Systema Aeris show at Gallery Nucleus. These small pieces are acrylic paint on stained paper with an oil-based finish.

E & Friends is a personal piece detailing a girl and her many masks. This small 3" tall drawing was also used to design the animals for my animal totems project.

Stirring is a 4-color screen print that I drew in layers with ink and hand-pulled the first edition. It appeared in PLANSPONSOR magazine in an article about data mining. The image was created to represent navigating a difficult course. 

A small personal sketchbook drawing about being undecided. 

I've been lucky enough to work with United Airlines for a number of campaigns. These images were used for billboards, posters, print advertising, and web use. The image "King for a Night" with the flying carriage was created to promote United's luxury international options, and the bridge piece was designed to bring to light United's direct flights to China from San Francisco. The city landscapes were painted to highlight key destinations on the United Airlines website.

Inside the Slidy Diner by the amazing Laurel Snyder was the most fun I've had illustrating a book. The story had lots of icky details and the old diner setting left lots of room for visual exploration. I've also displayed some recipe cards here that I designed to help promote the book, as well as the first concept sketches for how the book might look that helped me secure the assignment.

This is a selection of small paintings that were included in a group show titled "Systema Naturae" at Gallery Nucleus. They were influenced by specimen books and nature encyclopedias.

This 4-color screenprint is about being stuck in the middle. Whether in war or just between friends, playing the mediator often brings frustration. Printed on craft paper by VGKIDS.

This was a piece created for the Illustration West Call for Entries. The piece is called Old World Auction and was the painting that prompted the ideas and future world for my Melancholia series. This image was also profiled in Creative Quarterly, where I shared the meticulous process of collage and paint that went into this 11x14" piece.

I was asked to come up with a number of concepts for a holiday card for United Airlines, and this one was chosen to represent the brand. The final image was sent out in print and digital form as a holiday greeting and an advertisement to urge recipients to travel home for the holidays (and of course to possibly fly United when they do).

The piece was created for a group show at Copro Gallery. It is collage and acrylic paint. The sketch for the painting is also posted here to show some of my process. This piece was for a show with the theme "invasion". This image was also used on the cover of DPI Taiwan magazine along with a cover story about my work.

The cover for the wonderful story The Forest in the Hallway by Gordon Smith and published by Clarion Books remains on of my favorite assignments. My task was to illustrate the moment where the hallway reveals itself as a forest. I enjoyed coming up with ways to illustrate this transition, and the result was one of my favorite covers.

These small acrylic paintings were created for the Systema Naturae II show at Gallery Nucleus. The show had a water and nature theme, so I looked to mythological tales of the sea for inspiration.

This four-color screen print was created using light blocking paints on film, and was of my first attempts drawing for and printing a screenprint. This was first printed by me in both pink and blue editions and reprinted by VGKIDS in both yellow and green and is available in my Etsy shop.

This small cut paper and acrylic piece was created for Copro Gallery. It was inspired by a Russian Fairy Tale about a young girl who sets out to marry frost. She is eventually successfully saved by frost himself, but this image depicts her before all is well; a small bit of hope reveals itself in an unlikely flower growing in the snow.

This pink bunny warrior painting was painted on paper and wood and shown at Giant Robot San Francisco's POWER PUNCH show curated by the wonderful and talented Mark Todd and Esther Watson.

"Keep the circus going inside you" is the message here, courtesy of David Niven. This four-color screenprint was commissioned by the San Francisco Bazaar to sell at the event. I have also served as the Art Director for this event, developing the branding and working with guest artists on limited edition prints each year.

Inspired by the original story of the Snow Queen, young Gerda goes out seekingher friend Kai. She asks a flower if it knows where he may be. This flower does not know, but its roots reach many buried secrets. This collage and acrylic painting sold out quickly as a limited edition art print. I reproduced it as a heavyweight poster and it has since become the most popular item I have sold. 

Hello Craft is an wonderful organization for artisans and crafters who want to sell their work and grow their businesses. I worked with the Hello Craft team on developing a look for the group that was fun and accessible, and could be used universally to represent the brand. I created a cast of characters that were also carried through the eventual book Handmade to Sell, published by Potter Craft and illustrated by me.

The Girl Behind the Glass is a spooky book for middle graders about twin sisters who are driven apart by a ghost girl who haunts their house. I had the opportunity to create the cover image and found the premise to be right up my alley. The final cover illustration is shown here, along with my first thumbnail sketches for the piece.

This is a 3-color screenprint designed for the San Francisco Bazaar, a popular and top-notch indie art and craft event. The image was originally printed on tote bags and has been sold as a print.

These images are part of a collection of fairy tale landscapes created for a solo gallery show at Lunar Boy Gallery in Astoria, Oregon. They were influenced by old tales form around the world. These were created with collage and acrylic paint.

Cakes and Miracles: A Purim Tale written Barbara Diamond Goldin is about a blind boy named Hershel who wants to make hamantaschen to take to market. His mother does not want him to be disappointed by his limitations and sways him away from trying. He finds the courage to try anyways and discovers he has a talent! These images were created with acrylic paint.

Tengu I & II were created for Gallery Nucleus for two different shows with a ninja theme. I found some interesting folk tales about the birdman creature called Tengu in Japan and used the tales of the mischievous creature to create these paintings.

A quick little screen print for The Sampler. Printed in a limited edition.

These holidays cards were both created with a theme of hope. The forest animals image was created for Gallery Nucleus to exhibit and sell at their holiday card show. The firefly piece was commissioned by the American Red Cross for their holiday card sale to benefit the organization.

These images were part of a series painted for the L.A. Weekly for a column I titled "Only in L.A." ;  an effort to visually pin some of the city's eccentricities.