The first piece in the series, “City Square,” began in January 2023. My creative process typically starts with gathering inspirational ideas and sketching out parts of the scene. For this piece, I began with the giraffe in the car. Once I start drawing some aspects, I get inspiration to build on them. Usually, I only sketch about a quarter of what the final image will be before I start working on building my layers with Prismacolor pencil crayons.

I never know exactly what the full piece will look like in the end. My personal work in illustrations and oil paintings is much like a dance. As I work on the image, it starts to speak to me. I know that might sound cliché, but it’s true – the piece really does tell me what it needs, where there’s space that’s overexpressed or lacking. One image that I slowly start to create will then tell me what would complement it. I work through the piece by coloring and then going back to add more to the sketch, moving back and forth until it’s finished.

After completing “City Square,” I moved on to the second piece, “Beach Craze.” This piece was extremely fun to create. I particularly loved how my sloth and hyena bartender turned out. I challenged myself to capture the details on the tiki bar liquor bottles with their labels. My goal was to create the overall feel of a typical beach scene, where you have overly expressive, arrogant beachgoers showing off their bodies and abs, alongside the cool, chilled-out folks just having a beer or drink on the dock.

The last piece I created in this series is called “Animalistic.” This piece was all about showcasing old-school downtown New York, with trains running in the background adorned with graffiti, hot rod cars, and people DJ’ing with turntables. I highlighted clothing styles from the 80s and 90s. This piece wrapped up the year-long project in December 2023.