I love to paint portraits (especially of people I know). I have a special fondness for children. Nothing satisfies me more than the moment when I realize that I have created a good likeness of my subject. It's a mixture of magic and relief. I work from reference photos and will often alter them in terms of color and composition before I paint them.

I am in perimenopause, which is the transitional time before menopause, and I illustrated the various changes that are happening to me. “Menomorphosis” is a series of self-portraits where I’ve projected images of nebulas (dying stars) onto my skin.

My still life paintings are as labor-intensive as they look! I enjoy painting things that are complicated, shiny, and more often than not, round. I usually place my objects in nests of aluminum foil. This prevents them from rolling around, and it creates a challenging and reflective background for me to paint.

My father was an avid fisherman in the 1970s, and when I was a child I was fascinated with the lures in his tackle box. They reminded me of toys--colorful, dangerous toys! I've created a series of lure paintings, some of which I've combined with jewelry.

Jewelry has provided the ultimate shiny-colorful still life challenge for me. Most of these paintings are 18"x24" or larger, and it's great fun to enlarge a tiny gem or trinket to around the size of my fist or head. I can really lose myself in these.

Covid left me virtually model-free, so out of desperation I became my own best model. My early paintings in this series are pretty straightforward. But the more I painted myself, the more I enjoyed being able to tell my story through paintings with abstract elements.

Here’s the step by step evolution of my latest painting, “Menomorphosis: The New Normal.” I am in perimenopause, which is the transitional time before menopause, and I am attempting to illustrate the various changes that are happening. “Menomorphosis” will be a series of self-portraits where I’ve projected images of nebulas (dying stars) onto my skin. Women my age supposedly disappear, but I plan to defy this patriarchal idea. Programming note: you can see what I’m currently working on by supporting me on Patreon for $1/month!

Most of my paintings of the natural world are close-ups. I love painting textures and details, so paintings like these are a better fit for me than big, sweeping landscapes. I tend to paint a lot of flowers, but sometimes I'll branch out and work on non-floral subjects.

Painting U2 is the geekiest thing I do, and I hesitate to even discuss it with family members. I was the cartoonist for atu2.com from 2002 to 2020 when the site disbanded. Instead of doing something quick and easy like a normal person might, I decided to paint my panels with watercolor, and below are some of the fruits of my labor.

My cartoons and other U2 writing live at achtoonbaby.com now. Check it out if you're interested, and several of these paintings are available for purchase on this site.

As frighteningly uncool as all of this is, in 2002 and 2016 I showed these little U2 paintings of mine at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2019-20, the Illinois State Museum in Springfield (and their Lockport gallery) featured three of these paintings in their Rocked and Rolled group exhibition. Most amazingly of all, two of my paintings are now part of the Little Museum of Dublin’s permanent collection and can be viewed in their U2 room.

Flowers and watercolors are such a perfect pairing. It's almost as if the paint wants to help me produce soft, colorful petals. I often paint flowers after tackling a particularly difficult portrait or still-life because they really help me loosen up.

If you would like to learn how to paint flowers (or want to learn basic skills), I've developed two pads of watercolor paper with Strathmore that come with step-by-step instructional material and videos. Learn more about them here!

Animals are beautiful and challenging, and they offer many opportunities to create unique textures such as feathers or fur. My favorite subject was my cat Bunny (who sadly died in 2014). She was an unusually small cat and the cutest thing I have ever seen. Bun loved to watch me paint, too. I've occasionally painted pets for people, such as the pretty tabby lying on the rug below. And I'd like to introduce Pooj, my new kitty seen below. 

Usually a painting will take me weeks or even months to complete. The sketches below took two or three hours, so they're a lot looser! I have a YouTube channel where I demonstrate how to paint things like these, and it's a race against time as I record my process. My computer chokes on videos that are longer than three hours, so I paint as quickly as possible. You can see my videos here!

I made these for Strathmore in 2016 as part of their Learning Series project. I created two sets of step-by-step, instructional material and exclusive videos for Strathmore, and these came with two pads of watercolor paper. If you'd like to learn more about the pads, please go here! 

My Step by Step gallery got too crowded, so here’s more!

I plan to save all of my work-in-progress images here. Watch my paintings grow!