Another project for Home Depot. They wanted to promote their new app. So I made a huge iPhone with the App on it so they can display it during certain promotions. This is a large 4 x 8 sheet of insulation that I painted on. To get everything looking clean I created all the graphics and printed them out the size I needed them. Then I just painted the rest to fill in everything.

Kids Club

I worked on customizing some aprons for the Kids Club staff to use. They wanted them to stand out and be a bit more artsy and colorful for the kids.

I am also working on Banner for them for their Facebook page for the monthly workshops that come up.

Honoring The Veterans

Here is a project that I worked on for Home Depot. The picture you see here is the roughed out design I had come up with. They have associates that work for them that had served in our military. They wanted to recognize them with a nice visual sign that there names could be gathered around. The first image is the design I came up.

Here is the finished piece. There are some slight differences. I used a grid system to help me enlarge it from a normal sheet of paper to the size you see here. It is 44" x 35" x 3/4". I would have made it bigger if the spot they had in the store was larger. As well as this was the biggest size I could fit in my car.

It took me almost four days to design, transfer design, cut and prep the surface and to paint it all up. I wanted to have a nice shape for this piece and felt it would have more of an impact if it was something other than painted on a square board. I even went as far as rounding off the sides and making sure to seal it so it would last a long time.

Tempe Town Arts Festival

     I always love going to this festival. So many creative people in one place. I love to see what the latest and greatest is. There are also 2 or 3 artist I see every time and I look forward to seeing what they have come up with since I saw them last. The main thing I like about the festival is that it helps to recharge my creative self to get back to expressing my visions in any medium so I can share that with others. No one will see what I see or fully understand what events helped to shape this piece in my mind but if it inspires people to see what they would like to see in it or have it evoke the feeling they are looking for then it helped the artist as well as helping the viewer. Win win situation I think.

Custom Costumes

     Ever since Julian was little, I always did a lot of research online to find a cute costume that was not your mas produced outfit. My little man is unique and I want his costume to represent that. So every year I talk with Julian to figure out what is his favorite character. Hopefully it is from a new animated film it gives me reference and less chance they will have lots of costumes out. The last two year Julian has not seen anyone dressed like him and he has received many compliments. Julian smiling makes me happy so I will continue to do that.

     The first costume I made for Julian was Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. This one was a total surprise. I never told him about it. I knew it was his favorite show. I had a super cool reveal planned ahead of time. I knew that they were opening a Jake and the Neverland Pirates live stage show. So on the special day I had him suit up and we went to the happiest place on earth. When we went into the show he was so excited. The cast members came down once they had seen him. The joked around about how well he looked that he was the real Jake and he should be back stage getting ready for the show. It was awesome.

     While Julian was in Texas he had a special day at school. It was something having to do with coming in dressed as an old person. So dad was on the case again. I tried to think of some of the things that said to me old. Here is what I came up with. What was funny was, that even though a lot of kids dressed up and had fun with it, only one other kid in his class was dressed. Julian went up to his teacher and took off his glasses to say, "Hey it's me.... Julian". Like she could not tell. =D


     This last year, 2012, Julian had a choice in movies between Hotel Transylvania and Franken Weenie. We both talked about it and went with creating Franken Homie. Here is what I came up with. I went a little too dark on the blue for his face and I should have pained the hair I made to be closer to the brown. But I was very happy with it.

Photo Shadow Box

     I decided to take the scrap booking to a new level. So I added things that would bring the parts of the page on different height layers. Maybe it is that 3D artist in me. So now if you move while viewing my projects you get a small sense of a 3D image versus a 2D image. And in the Christmas one you can see I added lighting as well. My son is a huge inspiration so I am trying to d a photo box of all his "First Times". I am still like 10 behind.

     Documenting my sons first flight was fun. The people on Southwest were incredibly nice when they heard about it. They made the little certificate and got to check out the cockpit. Also i included some extra shots to show how I construct the piece.

     First trip to Disneyland. This piece has some Christmas lights that light up when you hit the switch on top. We has his first timer button. As well as on the Disney map I have pins attached with red thread showing the exact path we took that whole day.

     Of course I had to do a shadow box of my son's birth. I kept all kinds of things so I would have plenty to choose from when designing the piece. His little foot tags, beabie, and one of a few drawings I did while his mom and him slept.

First Scrapbook

     I had helped out my, at the time, fiance do some really simple scrapbooking way back in 2004. I realize, even though she did not have much creative talent (Shhhh she has a Masters so she has other strengths), she was really into it. When I decided I wanted ask her to marry me I thought as part of the whole proposal I would create a scrapbook of the behind the scenes that lead up creating the parts needed for this scrapbook. So here it is.

What I call....

     Poor Man's Light Table. I do not always have all the tools I need but am quick to find a suitable alternative. I have been meaning to get myself a light table since I use it alot when I am trying to concept a project. My first attempt at creating my own light table was simple. I taped the pieces of paper on windows. Even though this tended to be an uncomfortable position, for long periods of time, it worked. Of course it only worked when it was daylight or bright outside. I recently had to work on a piece into the evening hours. So I upgraded my light table by placing a small light outside that I pointed at the window. Worked great.

Julian's Treehouse '10

     So my son loves a show called "Bindi's Treehouse". So I thought I would build his own treehouse. Having some place cool and fun to play. And having a fun place to play when it is raining and cold outside or when we have our 115 degree summers is a bonus. Not to mention I wanted to make it really interactive to keep him wanting to come back. I started out by buying an IKEA bunk bed. I came up with a design by drawing right on the manual. I stained it, put it together using glue to make it super strong, yet keeping in mind how I would break it down if I had to move it. As you can see I bought some out door playground attachments i.e. steering wheel, Tic Tac Top, and telescope. I also added a metal sheet that is perfect for magnets. To the sides of that are gray areas that are perfect for velcro play. Just recently added a pully type thing so he can load his tools in the bucket on the ground and hoist them up from his treehouse.

Wood Characters '06

     So we picked out a theme for my son's room. I was happy to see it was animals. I used the characters that were present to base my wood cutouts after. Same style and feel just in different poses on the ones I liked the most. You can see the original characters on the blanket draped over the crib. The final cutouts are placed up on the wall. If you look at the angled photos you can see that some of the animals have some more depth to them then just the thickness of the wood. The crocodile has some hands coming over the chair rail(I painted and added chair railing). And the giraffes neck is coming out away from the wall.

Where to Start

     I love to be creative and come up with unique and special pieces. I come up with an idea and let that dictate what the finished piece will entail. It might just be a serious of pictures arranged in a particular way. Whether it is on paper as sort of drawing. Or it might be a larger piece made of something like metal or wood. I am open to everything and learning new ways to create a physical piece of interest that attempts to show those that view it a little bit of the inside of my mind. I do hope you enjoy the variety of examples of my work.