Well over combined 100 hours of work was put into all of these paintings, and I hope that shows. This series of 12x18 landscape/still life paintings explores the experience of attending and vending at conventions, highlighting the range of emotions involved in vending—from the stress, slow pace, enjoyment and potential boredom. The series demonstrates the passion of convention-goers, and affirms that fan art is a legitimate and valuable form of artistic expression.

I ultimately decided to go with this topic because a lot of the time, digital artists, and ESPECIALLY fan artists, don’t get the recognition they deserve– specifically from the fine arts community. I personally love creating fanart since I grew up with these different forms of media and they’re very near and dear to my heart. Throughout my MCAD career I made it a priority to not do fanart as assignments to challenge myself further, however I wanted to prove with this project that not only is fanart a valid form of art, but people at conventions absolutely LOVE buying fanart of their favorite characters. Also to prove that even though I am a digital artist, I (and many other digital artists,) are fully capable of working traditionally. I want to prove to the fine art world that essentially not only is illustration, digital art, but also fanart are all valid forms of art. Eventually I plan to make these into postcards to sell at cons once I have the time!