This series was born of a desire to see if it was possible.

My friend Chloe Rice, a professional photographer with an exceptionally playful eye for color and composition, sent me a photo of a neon sign in a restaurant in Chinatown - the “Hello, Thank You” sign - and I knew I wanted to paint it. 

Traditionally, watercolor is very light and transparent, with the highlights of the painting provided by the white paper. I have always struggled with watercolors since I have a heavy hand and lean towards vibrant, saturated colors. So I wanted to see if that effect was possible on black paper, and if watercolors would even show up. So I just… fucked around and found out. 

Not only do I love how these turned out, I also loved the process of creating them. A lot of art tends to build from light to dark, but I learned in my work drawing realistic pet portraits for almost a decade now that my brain loves to see the darkness and add in the highlights.

I also have always loved to capture light and reflections, so each painting was it’s own complex problem of figuring out how to convey the bright of the neons, the details in the shadows, and the way it spilled onto and illuminated things around it.