Biography

Early Years and School

I always remember drawing. I think I started drawing when I was about five years old in 1973. I remember sitting at my parents' diningroom table tracing Snoopy comics and then trying to draw them on my own without the tracing paper and it magically worked! I also remember sitting at the lunch table in elementary school and drawing these army battles between stick figures with a friend of mine - the trajectory of the bullets being represented by a dashed line. This was way before video games!

Around ten years old, I got into drawing superheroes and started drawing Spiderman and Batman constantly. I owned quite a few comic books then (which I have no idea where they are now). I also remember copying the artwork off of many album covers too. I was a huge KISS fan and KISS Destroyer and any and all Iron Maiden albums were an inspiration. In high school in the 80's, I was painting Iron Maiden's "Eddie" on every blue denim notebook I could get my hands on - for a fee of course...

When I was fourteen, a friend of mine introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons and that was it. I took the books home and read them through in a few days and was hooked from then on. It was through D&D that I was introduced to fantasy artists like Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell, Keith Parkinson, and Jeff Easley. During that time I was reading DragonLance and Lord of the Rings too. Yep, I was hooked...

During my senior year I turned my artistic interests to the old masters, especially Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. For a senior year project, I completed a life-size copy of Michelangelo's "Birth of Adam" from the center panel of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in Prismacolor colored pencils. The project took the entire year however I didn't mind since I had six periods of art and one of English. After high school, I attended the Maryland Institute - College of Art for a brief time before running out of money and joining the U.S. Army.

The Army

I joined the infantry for the first three years and was able to paint a few wall murals and portraits when not in the field training, but changed my career field over to graphic artist and remained in the Army for 12 years. During that time, I earned a fine arts degree, served as a combat artist documenting, through art, Army operations worldwide. I also taught basic graphics at the Defense Information School, and learned a great deal about art history along the way.

Art After the Army

After separating from the Army, I got a job photographing the Army's Art collection of 15,000+ artworks. The collection has several artworks by well-known American illustrators including Norman Rockwell, Kerr Eby, Harvey Dunn, and Dean Cornwell. Seeing these works close-up sparled my interest in illustration again.

The fantasy art bug bit a few years ago when I picked up a copy of Spectrum 7 - The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. Here, I was introduced to a whole new generation of fantasy artists whose work I admired. Artists like Brom, Matt Stawicki, Danato Giancola, Justin Sweet, and many others. This, in addition to buying the Brother's Hildebrandt: The Tolkien Years book a few years ago really peaked my interest. Not to mention the renewed interest that the Lord of the Rings movies have brought along with the artistic work of Alan Lee and John Howe. Seeing all of this new work, especially after years of studying the old masters and painting techniques has brought me around full circle. I see the art in a new way and can see the process and craft behind it. Am I psyched? You bet!!! What I'm hoping to accomplish is taking my knowledge of past art and artists' techniques and my love for fantasy role-playing and literature and applying it to fantasy art. We'll see what happens.

I currently work by day as a graphic designer for the Army, designing history books. By night, I freelance, work on art commissions, and paint whatever comes to mind. To see what I'm working on now, go to my blog, ArtPad.

Thanks for following my artistic journey.

- Gene