I primarily use Adobe Photoshop for painting illustrations. These full paintings take anywhere from two to twelve hours, depending on the complexity. I do not use AI generated images in any way, shape, or form, not even as inspiration. This is all human made.

The Complete Package

From covers to stickers, maps and typography, I often create everything needed for an author to take their book from “vague idea” to “highly marketable.” In 2025, I was nominated for Best Universe Member – Artist for the Indieverse Awards.

Illustrations

When I’m not teaching, I take art commissions that interest me. Space Wizard Science Fantasy often fills my spare time and I have been one of their main freelance illustrators since 2021.

I have painted the interior illustrations for the following books:

Distant Gardens, an science-fantasy anthology
Farther Reefs, a companion anthology to Distant Gardens
Lofty Mountains, a companion anthology to Distant Gardens
Fiery Deeps, a companion anthology to Distant Gardens, in collaboration with Kristine Bayer
The World of JUNO, a science-fantasy anthology that I wrote a story for as well as illustrated
Ardulum: First Don, second edition, a science-fiction novel by J.S. Fields
Ardulum: Second Don, second edition, the sequel to First Don
Ardulum: Third Don, second edition, the final book of the Ardulum trilogy
Ardulum: Tales from Ardulum, a collection of short stories starring the beloved characters of the Ardulum trilogy
Lesbians in Space: Where No Man Has Gone Before, a sapphic science fiction anthology (coming soon)

Covers

I have also painted the cover for the following books:

Junk Junction, a middle grade horror by Sara Codair
The Rosewood Penny, a fantasy romance by J.S. Fields
Foxfire in the Snow, a coming-of-age fantasy by J.S. Fields
Ocean of Fireflies, the sequel to Foxfire in the Snow
The Slayer’s Magic, a young adult fantasy by C.J. Hosack
The Traveler’s Magic, a sequel to The Slayer’s Magic

This is the updated version of The Rosewood Penny, after I read the final book and realized that since the early draft I read, one of the protagonist's hair color changed. — This is the updated version of The Rosewood Penny, after I read the final book and realized that since the early draft I read, one of the protagonist’s hair color changed.

World of Juno

Space Wizard Science Fantasy asked me to not only illustrate The World of JUNO, a science-fantasy anthology, but also to write a short story for it. I wrote Ashfall on Jade, the tale of a small family attempting to escape when a volcano’s eruption threatens to destroy their underground city home.

Badges

During the summer of 2020, I was hired by Curiosity Untamed to create a reflection to go over each of their badge images. Curiosity Untamed wanted a 2D Photoshop solution, as rendering a 3D version of 27,000 badges was possible, but an expensive and time-consuming task. The challenge was to create a layered painting where each badge could be imported automatically underneath my painted reflection to create a 3D look.

Using a reference photo and Photoshop, I painted the reflection and shadow by hand on a computer-created flat grey circle. You can see the completed reflections all over Curiosity Untamed’s website.

An example of the steps used to create the new badge reflection, from the original grey circle to the finished product.

If the image isn't working, you can find example badges on Curiosity Untamed's website. — Example of four of the thousands of badges Curiosity Untamed offers.

Social Media

During the summer of 2019, I was in charge of creating media via Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Spark for Curiosity Untamed’s social media accounts. I then regularly posted these images through Hootsuite. When Curiosity Untamed decided to modernize and broaden its curriculum, I taught my social media successor before switching to writing said new curriculum.

All of these images were created using Curiosity Untamed’s flat badge images and commercial-use, royalty-free images from sites such as Pexels and Pixabay. I used photomanipulation and painting to combine these images. On average, it would take me roughly fifteen to twenty minutes to create one social media image, depending on the complexity.