At what point was your first exposure to airbrush art, and What paint do you currently use and why?
how long did it take you to give the airbrush a whirl? I have used pretty much everything, and I guess my favorite stuff
The album cover of Rod Stewart’s Atlantic Crossing is what re- was ComArt years ago. I’ve used gouaches, I don’t like solvent
ally got me going on the airbrush thing. I loved the cover art base paints, I’ve used them in the past but primarily use water
and discovered it had been airbrushed; I did some research and based paints now. I’ve just discovered an incredible paint called
found out at the art store how an airbrush worked and that got E’TAC and use it exclusively.
me going. Right away I was hooked. Who were your mentors?
How long have you been using the airbrush? John Whamsley, I have to say is my number one mentor, one of
I was 18 when I first picked one up so it’s been almost 30 many talented former illustrators for the Sears Canada catalog
years. and many other publications. He illustrated for the catalog be-
fore they had color photography, a true master.
Your melding of man and beast creates imagery that is re-
strained, elegant, pure of form and simple of line. Myorca
seem to be the 21st Century metamorphosis of the mer-
maids of old. How did your work evolve to the current imag-
ery?
Canadian wildlife artist Robert Bateman’s “Orca Precession”
was the single most important inspiration in the creation and
development of Myorcas. It is of a pod of Killer Whales off a
small island near Puget Sound, British Columbia. I use to paint
mermaids, with human skin, different than the typical ‘fishy’
style girl, mine looked realistic, human like, when I saw the Bate-
man painting, it clicked, killer whale mermaids. The Orcas I paint
have evolved quite a bit, from human looking with killer whale
markings and facial features-eyes, nose, mouth, they have
transformed more into creatures, less human and more a true
morph. Where if you look at a killer whale you can’t clearly see
their eyes, their heads are more domed, with an aerodynamic
look, still they have yet to evolve to something else, they have
Which airbrushes do you own? not completely evolved yet. My mermaids went from human-
I use too have a bunch but I started on Thayer-Chandler, that like skin, retaining human facial features, the early ones had
was the finest available to me at the time, I have a Paasche webbed hands for fingers, they progressed to fingers but with
Turbo and an Iwata Micron. I’ve had the Micron about 15 years no faces to speak of and more defined markings, really solid
and I still love it! blacks, where the early ones I did were a light ghostly grey.
Which airbrushes are your favorite and why? Can you tell me about the basic process for creating a
The Iwata Micron because of it’s response and sensitivity, it’s piece?
so smooth and the precision is amazing, even more so than I scour through portfolios of photographer friends of mine and
the other Iwatas. I would say the feel and response is much project it onto the substrate I will be painting on and then add
more sensitive. And the fatigue factor is also a big reason I fa- my lines, killer whale markings, following the contours of the hu-
vor the Micron. When I did billboards all I used was an Iwata man form. You have to get the drawing and composition down
RG-2 for the larger areas, it is a fantastic airbrush. They don’t first, not do just any old pose. You have to know how it’s going
make them anymore; they went to the Iwata RG-3. If I could to work; for my pieces, the tail is my signature, I spend more
give advice I’d say, get a good quality airbrush. I’m going to get time on the tail than anything else. I can spend 10 to 15 hours
a pistol grip airbrush one day. It’s quite natural; you have a lot working out how it’s going to be foreshortened, placement up
of control with it, depending on what you’re working on. I really or down, figuring out gravity, how it will fall, I can throw a killer
want one again. whale tail on something, say on a mermaid, but then I have to
What substrate do you most often use, do you have a stan- figure out, what would a killer whale tail look like on a human?
dard size you prefer for your pieces? A lot of thought goes into it; if the subject has human form then
I use watercolor paper and canvas. Many Myorcas were paint- the tail is part of that form; you have to make it look like its real,
ed on CS 10 paper. Watercolor paper allows me to get right in like it belongs, if you don’t do it right, it’s not going to work. I
there with my airbrush on low pressure for fine detail, but you get a lot of satisfaction out of it, how the head and tail work
can’t use an electric eraser like you can with other substrates together, the relationship of how the tail is to the body; their
because it tends to shred paper. The most common size I work tails are huge, and they need a large tail. If a human was to fly
with is 15”x20”, 20”x30” my canvas pieces are much larger, they’d need a huge wingspan, the killer whale human needs a
whatever I think will make the piece appear most impressive. large tail to propel.
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32