This is the full process video for Portrait of an Artist. Painted over the course of a couple weeks in February of 2023. Like many of my paintings I didn't plan ahead or sketch this out before painting. I had a vague image in my mind of an amorphous skull shaped thing and a hand holding something like a book. The rest I make up as I go based on what feels right for the painting. In fact you'll notice a few times I paint over areas and change or redo them.

I do use references of course. The hand was from a photo of my hand, the skull from my skeleton model, and the eye was found online - I think I searched for scared eyes, haha.

Process video for The Damned. This piece was commissioned for a wraparound cover for the book Playlist of Damned. The idea for the book was a series of short stories and poems tied together by someone finding an old cursed music cassette. The publisher showed me some sample images. One was a zombie looking guy playing guitar so I went with that concept.

The guitar player is based on a photo of Devin Townsend from his time in Strapping Young Lad. However, I used a photo of my friend's arm for the hand holding the spirit skull since Devin's was playing the guitar.

This was, obviously, the first Skullscape painting. I came across the idea for this while experimenting with AI generated images. It was visually striking and immediately caught my attention, so I knew I needed to paint a version of it.

The use of AI may be controversial to some, and understandably so, but it isn't going away. I do agree the way it was trained was dubious, and its use to replace humans is unethical, but there are benefits as well. For example, this series of paintings was started with AI, but after the first two I stopped using it. I suppose essentially I used it to train myself to paint these paintings, and then made my own versions. In that sense I think it can be a wonderful tool for artists.

These portrait paintings are an exercise in looser painting techniques. I love doing detailed work, but I also enjoy the spontaneity of moving fast and loose with the paint.

The people in these are a mix of real people and AI generated people. If I can't find a real person I want to paint, then I will generate a person. Ideally I would prefer to use models and photograph them myself, but I don't have that option.

In addition I prefer painting real people because they have a personality, interests, etc. I like to try and incoporporate that into the image as well.