At any rate… I drew my cars, and airplanes, and stuff right through High School, and had a good time doing it. Some of these examples are included in my IMAGES pages. Media was primarily pencil, up to High School.
While taking an engineering illustration course, I was introduced to the Rapidograph Technical Pen. What a wonder these things are! The Rapidograph allowed me to draw (and write) on a nanoscopic scale – and I embarked upon a series of minute, hideously-complicated illustrations of fanciful science-fiction ideas. Again, most of these are lost to me now, but as I find them, I’ll scan ‘em and post them here.

Some of my earliest memories include a crayon – prolly doing unsavory things to the bedroom wall while standing in my crib – but, at any rate, I’ve been drawing since I was a wee little tyke. Almost all of my childhood drawings are long since gone – a by-product of a disintegrated family and the nomadic existence that followed… but I do recall being big on drawing rockets, airplanes, cars.

Oddly enough, I’ve never been able to draw nature, or people, with any proficiency – but give me a technical subject, and I just have a blast. I’m not sure why this is so – I’m convinced it’s a function of my personality and left-brain/right-brain conflict, but I don’t know enough psychology to render a compelling theory.

I took up photography at about the same time – starting with a busted-up old Nikkorex, graduating through a series of Canons, and then back to Nikons later on. Recognizing the need to access materials, knowledge, and facilities to properly master the art, I took up a job at Congressional Photo / Consolidated News Pictures, located on Capitol Hill. I worked there for years, moving up from the front counter “envelope guy” to Store Manager to Lab Tech to Lab Manager. It was a fun gig, and a “comfortable” living at the time.

When I began working in the musical arena, my opportunity for drawing gradually fell into the background – such that I don’t do much sketching – and almost zero Rapidograph work – any more. I’d like to take it up again, but there always seem to be other projects afoot!

In the meantime, in 2000 I bought a digital camera (an Olympus DL-360), and within a month my Nikons were retired to the closet, only being pulled back out when I had some special task that required the precision control that an SLR gave me. In 2003, my Bride bought me a Fuli Finepix 602 “pro-sumer” camera for my birthday, and since then, my $13K worth of Nikons haven’t been used at all! The gear will be on E-Bay when I get around to it…

Digital cameras mean digital images… and to the artist, digital images lead almost inexorably to PhotoShop. I’m beginning to experiment beyond plain old “image correction”, and move into “image creation” using PS and other graphics applications. Again, this work is visible in either the IMAGES or PHOTGRAPHS pages. Seek, and ye shall view.