Bounty

Watercolor on cold press paper, 8×10″.

I credit one of the most significant before-and-after moments in my development as an artist to Yoshitaka Amano. When I was fourteen I walked into a bookstore in my local middle-of-nowhere mall, and hanging from the ceiling was a scroll poster of the most beautiful pieces of artwork I’d ever seen in my life, a painting by Amano that I would come to learn was from a book series called “Vampire Hunter D,” which Amano also illustrated. I bought the poster, hung it in my bedroom, and spent about the next ten years staring at it, along with any of his works I could find.

Falling in love with and studying Amano’s work made me realize things that I wanted to learn to emulate in my own art pursuits; movement in composition. Economy of line. Contrast and balance – delicate focal points of clustered detail with bolder marks, neutral palettes with bursts of color, velvety darkness with glowing light tones.

I’ve had a long artist journey since then. I’ve gotten to know my own style, over the course of many directions and experimenting and inspirations. I still love Amano’s work. 

“Bounty” is an acknowledgement of that journey, with two dedications: one, a sincere thank you to Mr. Amano, for his incredible work that set my brain on fire. And secondly, a love letter to my fourteen year old self, who would be stunned and absolutely thrilled that at 32, I’m still drawing and painting, and finding so much joy in it, and still absolutely obsessed with vampires.