In 1997, my friends at work started telling me that I should turn my doodles and drawings into paintings. My friend, Susan Oliver used to keep the little scraps of paper that I'd thrown away, just because I'd drawn something on them and she thought I'd be "a famous artist" one day. It was Russ Akins, though, who said he thought I could really do it and that I should give it some serious thought. I argued that I'd never tried painting with anything other than watercolors and I didn't think my designs would work in watercolor. Russ kept encouraging me and I finally decided to give it a try.

Russ' Idea is one of the watercolors I did when I was beginning to think that maybe I could really paint. I wasn't happy with the washed out look the paintings had, though, so I ended up putting the paints and brushes away.

In 1998, I went to the Tower Arts Festival in Fresno, California, and met an artist who's paintings were vibrant and detailed and I immediately knew that I could create my art using whatever kind of paint he used. The artist was Joe Vargas and he told me to go to an art store and buy acrylic paints and just start painting. I've been painting ever since.