My drawings are a marriage of realism and subtle exaggeration. I usually start a drawing by building on what I've seen, and then I edit the drawing as I work to make it into a better visual understanding of what I've seen and felt. I follow different creative energies throughout the process and I've learned to trust their flows.

When a scene attracts me to it, I can see/hear its rhythms. It feels like I can hear the scene singing and the textures, lines, shapes, and shadows are all like musical notes. I furiously take many digital photos at different focuses and exposures so I'll have a wide range of images to work from. Then I move the photos into Photoshop and work out a composition that I can see/hear more clearly.

The composition stage is usually very fast and probably fits most people's expectation of how an artist works. I play music, I move around a lot, I sing and talk to myself, and feel very plugged in to a lively kind of creative energy from which I try to understand the scene's visual rhythms.

Once the composition feels right, I print out a “working” image and start the drawing process. Drawing is largely a "felt" thing to me. I don't plan my drawings much beyond a basic compositional framework before I begin. The printed image I work from is a solid framework to start the drawing with, but there is always more “feeling into” the drawing to be done as I work.

The drawing stage is very slow and probably more in line with how people think watchmakers work, slowly and deliberately. My drawing style is deliberate, but it's slow and careful in an intuitive way. Each new drawing “phrase” that I add builds upon what's already there. I don't know how my printed working image will have to be altered until I "feel" how the drawing is supposed to be.

I hear/feel inner directions about how the drawing should look as I work on it. The energy connected to drawing feels different from the lively energy of composition. It's deep and wide and this vast energy can be sustained over a longer period of time. A unique energy seems to be tied to each piece until it's done, too. When I pick up a drawing to work on it, I always connect with its special energy so I'm able to work on any piece at anytime. (This is a very good thing because otherwise it would be hard to work on anything long enough to get it done.)

I know a drawing is done when it feels done. Occasionally a drawing will drag its feet and not want to leave the drawing board. I have to be patient with those pieces. Sometimes I leave them in a dark place, like a drawer, to hibernate for a while. When I can look at them with a fresh eye again, I can see what they need to be finished.

I found my artistic rhythm through a lot of experimentation and hard work, and I think every artist has to go through a similar process to find their own working style. If you're an artist searching for your groove, I encourage you to find what works for you by paying attention to your intuition. Follow your muse, you can trust her.