Paws, Petals & Possibilities brings together nearly seven years of my creative journey in one expansive art collage. Featuring artwork I created from October 2019 through July 2026, this piece combines years of drawings, experiments, art challenges, personal projects, and creative ideas into a single visual celebration of my development as an artist.
The individual artworks throughout the collage were created using a wide variety of traditional and digital media, including Procreate, watercolor, acrylic, India ink, colored pencil, charcoal, alcohol marker, fineliner pen, and mixed media. After creating the individual pieces, I used GIMP to arrange them and build the finished collage.
The title Paws, Petals & Possibilities reflects the variety found throughout the piece. “Paws” represents the many dogs and other animal subjects that have become such an important part of my artwork. “Petals” represents my growing collection of flower and botanical artwork. And “Possibilities” represents everything else—the landscapes, fantasy artwork, characters, family-history illustrations, abstract pieces, art challenges, experiments, and unexpected creative directions I've explored along the way.
While many of the artworks featured in the collage have been shared online individually, a few have never previously been uploaded to the internet. These are primarily pieces I created during Dogust 2024, giving the collage a glimpse at artwork that hasn't been part of my usual online portfolio.
Rather than simply showcasing my newest work, I wanted this collage to preserve different stages of my artistic journey. Older pieces sit alongside newer creations, allowing changes in my subjects, materials, techniques, and artistic interests to become part of the finished composition.
Each individual piece has its own story, but together they create something new—a visual record of where my creativity has taken me from October 2019 through July 2026.
From Individual Artwork to One Giant Collage
Creating the individual artwork was only the first part of this project. I brought the pieces together digitally using GIMP, gradually arranging more and more of my artwork until they formed the finished collage.
I also incorporated several of my logos into the composition, connecting different parts of my creative journey with the identity I've developed around my artwork.
After completing Paws, Petals & Possibilities, I cropped different sections of the collage to create new social media banners. Those banners are now being used across my social media profiles, allowing portions of this larger retrospective to become part of the presentation of my artwork online.
The Story Behind the Title
Dogs have remained one of the strongest themes throughout my artwork, making Paws a natural starting point for the title. Over time, flowers and botanical subjects have also become an increasingly visible part of my portfolio, represented by Petals.
But my artwork has never been limited to just those two subjects.
Possibilities represents the freedom to continue experimenting. It leaves room for every landscape, character, family-history illustration, fantasy concept, abstract experiment, and future idea that may take my artwork somewhere I haven't expected yet.
That's what makes Paws, Petals & Possibilities more than a collection of older artwork. For me, it's both a look backward at nearly seven years of creativity and a reminder that there are still countless possibilities ahead.
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