There are so many resources out there for Independent artists it can sometimes be hard to know where to begin. Here are my top 4 books that I would recommend an artist read to get started, especially if they’re of a more “entrepreneurial” mindset.

For the past 5 years I have been exhibiting as an artist at shows big and small, and I have found that one of the most common questions I get asked from fellow artists is “How do I know when I’m ready for an exhibitor booth?”

Follow me around for a day in the life of an artist and fantasy illustrator. As a freelance illustrator, each and every day is new, exciting and different. Today I thought it would be fun to share with you what goes on during one of my days as a working artist.

I get a lot of questions about my art style, so today I'm sharing a little bit about how I found my art style! We dig into some of my old sketchbooks and I go through some old art!

How to Design an ARTIST Portfolio Website As a professional artist, you need to have an online space that is yours to showcase your artwork and reflects your goals as an artist, illustrator or creative.

In this video I take you through some of the steps to set up a website and a few best practices in building an artist portfolio website.

When we last left off in this worldbuilding series I shared a little of the "why" behind starting my own world.

Today I want to continue onto the how I found seeds of my story and started crafting a narrative. It's one thing to have a desire to create a world, to understand your "why" around building it, but many flounder while trying to find a concrete “something”  to attach their “why” to. This is where narrative and story come in.

The word "worldbuilding" can feel a bit all-encompassing, depending on who you're talking to it can mean a whole set of different things. To me, worldbuilding means crafting a fictional world, including a cast of well-rounded characters, that is believable and inviting.

Hi! I'm excited to share that I've written a guest blog post for the One Fantastic Week blog, a business and art focused community that I am apart of.

Since I share frequently my resources in how I run my business I think you will find this educational, especially if you are thinking about going to any sort of show or convention further away.

Since the beginning, I've been creating artwork on the road. My first watercolor palette was a simple travel set I picked up on a whim. Travel and being able to work while mobile has shaped so much of my process and how I work I decided it was about time I create a list of some of my favorite supplies that I use on the road.

This fall I took on a whole new type of art show, The Harvest Festival, and I wanted to share a little bit of my experience with you.

As an independent artist that is building an audience and making a fair portion of my income from shows like this I think it's important to share my own takeaways in the hopes that someone else can learn from my experiences. If you follow my YouTube channel you already know that I'm fairly candid with the information I share and I hope to be able to bring that same kind of candor here to my blog as well.

This year was my third year attending one of my favorite art events of the year, Illuxcon.

Illuxcon is it's own kind of show. It's hard to describe because there are few shows that I've found that are similar to it. The best that I can do is use their own words. Illuxcon is:

A ground-breaking art show, symposium, and celebration dedicated solely to imaginative realism—bringing artists, students, collectors, and art fans together for an annual gathering intended to inspire and create further awareness and zeal for imaginative realism and all that’s encompassed in the realm of the fantastic.

I started this painting in a location where I have started many others, out at the coffee shop with a friend. There is something about being out in the bustling environment that allows me to focus in on things that I normally could. To harness ideas that I normally wouldn't approach.

For this painting, I wanted to play with more underwater themes. I love the drifting sea and the magical elements one can find within it. I love the ocean and would like to play more around these themes in future.

I created the original line work for this piece last fall for the Month of Fear challenge. I wanted to explore a quiet place, not necessarily frightening or scary. I've been exploring many connected ideas revolving around the jungle themes I've been writing about jumped at the oportunity to pull this piece back out and paint it.

Growing up, we traveled and moved a lot as a family, packing our lives up into a handful of trunks to move between countries. This constant packing and unpacking has made me efficient at squeezing my life into a suitcase.

One of my early experiences traveling to a show was for an event while I was still living in Japan. At the time we didn't own a car, and my only option for getting there was public transportation.