Fairy tales, folk tales and myths have always fascinated me. I believe they speak to our Jungian collective unconscious. I have always particularly adored animal tales, which bring out human foibles in anthropomorphized format. In my watercolors, I seek to illustrate those animal tales in as realistic a way as possible, as if it really were possible to keep boots on a cat, or for a grasshopper and an ant to converse. I actually do quite a bit of research to choose as authentic an environment as possible, whether it is what our collective unconscious believes a troll should look like, or what sort of spider would live in Jamaica, which is the American source of many of the Anansi tales.
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To produce each painting, I start with a detailed pencil drawing based on photographs. I then ink it using technical pens of varying thicknesses. After the ink has set, I erase the pencil and paint it, then I write the accompanying story, based on as many sources as possible. Some, like Aesop's fables, are merely a paragraph or two; others can be quite long. I write more for adults than children, because I believe we all can still learn from these tales.

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The Billy Goats Gruff

The Lion and the Mouse

The Grasshopper & the Ant