Bio
I was one of those kids that drew a lot. I haven't stopped yet. At first it was for my own amusement; dinosaurs, imaginative creatures- Disney and Dr. Seuss stuff. My brother, who was 3 years older and an advanced draftsmen for his age, challenged me toward greater accuracy. I drew and drew.
As a teenager I began to take note of past artists and styles and began to play with them, from impressionists to cubists to surrealists. My Disney tendencies were converted to Dali. Years later, I still straddle in my own work between those two masters.
I majored in art during my brief college days, though I never envisioned it as a career. It was just what I wanted to do. After leaving college I continued my own exploration of fantasy and surrealism.
I've continued that exploration for nearly 50 years. In the early '70's I began my sift toward children's art, though really it was just for me. It was a wild mix of fairy tales and psychodelic art. The child-like aspect stuck and remains in whatever image I create. Recently, I've been leaning more and more to the abstract; what I would call the organic abstraction. It is a direct extension of my surrealistic explorations. I now go back and forth between fantasy and abstraction.
Along the way I started doing murals. My first two were large exterior murals for a folk dance center and Middle Eastern restaurant in Los Angeles in 1974. Twenty years and a hand full of murals later, I began to promote murals as a career. That went on for 10 years then slowed down.The murals represented on this site mostly come from that period.
Finally, I'm currently writing several children's books. They very greatly in content and format; some prose, some in verse, but still in the Disney/Dali mindsets.
That's about all for now. Thanks for your time.
Jud Sharp