In art school I was trained in both traditional and digital painting; however, I was primarily a sculptor. When I decided in 2007 to pursue children’s book illustration, I was drawn to digital painting for some of the same reasons I enjoyed sculpting, mainly the freedom to edit for extended periods of time. In the past I was an edit addict with significant commitment issues (self-diagnosed, of course). The ability to edit and tweak a sculpture for days and sometimes weeks before committing to completion was greatly appealing to me, as was the seemingly endless edits of digital painting. The problem was, I could never fully commit to finishing a painting. I always felt the need to go back and alter some minute detail because I could. The clay never dried. After about three years working in digital painting, I had illustrated a couple of books and had received a lot of positive recognition, but I didn’t really enjoy the creative process anymore. So many of my fellow illustrators who work digitally have been able to achieve this beautiful easiness, flow, and character to their work that has always eluded me in that medium. My illustrations felt tortured. I felt tortured. Clearly, Photoshop and I needed to break up.

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