This commission was for a grandfather, a portrait of his first grandchild. I wanted the colors to pop, but not be too unrealistic. The highly stylized rendering of the subject still keeps a sense of realism, but uses bold contrast and saturated hues to bring out the fun and joy in the picture.

The most interesting part of this was making the background. I had to research plants to assemble my bouquet, which I wanted to be all blue in color to match the child’s middle name. Thistle, blueberries, and blue and white hydrangeas populate the wallpaper-like background.

A commission of a client’s longtime Dungeons & Dragons character. They had other art drawn before, and the character had quite a bit of history and physical descriptors. Among the items to incorporate:

• “She’s made of trees”

• “Became a snake for a thousand years or so”

• “pendant from an acorn from her tree”

• “Hair is chia seed p much”

• “Big cool staff”

My personal challenge was to make it moodier and less action-oriented than most tabletop fantasy artwork. There’s a weariness to her expression I really like.

This client requested a portrait of his family’s dog as an anniversary gift for his wife. He described my art as being capable of being “cute and cuddly and also bizarre and beautiful” and requested something right in between the two modes. Beyond this, he said his wife is a big fan of the artist Piet Mondrian, if the work could find inspiration there.

I tried to make a surreal saint portrait of the dog, and was quite pleased with the blend of realistic details and playfully exaggerated features.

Tot and pup. Pup and tot. Flowers.

This was my third commission from the client, who had me do posters for her sister’s first two children previously. With the third, she wanted the family dog added in. The design was left up to me—I was simply provided reference photos of the kid and dog.

Knowing the client was a florist, I asked her for some flowers to put in the background, and she suggested roses and ranunculi.