So you've probably all seen a LOT of my artwork, but how much do you know about me? :D Today I'm going to give an introduction, and answer some random questions from the lovely Nichole Angela, the genius, energetic firecracker behind Red Fish Viral.

To start, let’s go back. Way back...to the home land! Which happens to be South Korea. In 1983, a lovely Michigan family opened their arms and home to me, and I was promptly shipped over with a plane full of precious cargo (other babies).

Can you believe they flew infants out that way? If you have to ask, the cute one in the middle is me, clearly drunk off baby formula.

Why does this really matter? It doesn’t, but it at least explains my super weird middle name, “Ihn” which is part of my given Korean name. It’s pronounced “EEN”, yeah you have to say it super loud like that. (kidding…)

Ok, fast-forward a bit. I’m one of those artists that admit to being obsessed with art since they could hold a pencil. The classic nerdy, artsy band-geek (french horn and piano), that started by just drawing a million horses, and eventually Garfield and Odie (which I’m finding is a surprisingly large influence for artists my age), before I branched out to bigger things like copying the manga Battle Angel Alita. I hope you hear the sarcasm in my written voice. Before I knew it, I was in college for Illustration at the Ringling College of Art and Design.

College didn’t exactly propel me into the dream art career like we all hoped. A good amount of time was spent working odd jobs like at luxury doggy daycares, veterinary offices (I work best when I just have to talk to animals), and even two weeks at Marie Callender's as a hostess before I realized that it was causing my first panic attacks. OMG, tip people well!!! It is so not worth the minimum wage they’re making.

Once I finally snagged an office job doing graphic design at Zazzle, it lead to a pretty long career in the gaming industry. The most recent game I worked on was Snoopy Pop. Working on that game was pretty awesome, and I learned SO MUCH from Charles Schulz's comics. Here's a map I worked on for the game.

Recently in 2016, I started painting with some friends to relieve some anxiety during our lunch breaks. It turns out gouache is really fun! I was really only used to oil paints and acrylics before, and it was nearly a decade since I even touched anything traditional. It felt so weird to even sharpen a pencil!

But let’s skip the resume, and talk fun random stuff. I was prom queen (it was more of a joke, really), I used to show my quarter horse, Gypsy, at the county fair lol,

I'm an INFJ...hardcore introvert that tries to act normal, I’m a total square with an obnoxiously strong moral compass. I rescued two dogs when I was 19 and had them until I was 35. They were the loves of my life. RIP my sweet boys. :( 

I’m short...5’0”, apparently have a strong RBF, Cilantro tastes like foot sweat, and my car is a 2004 Corolla and all of the paint is slowly burning off from the California sun. I’m also obsessed with tomatoes, and have chickens, ducks, cats, and a dog. If it’s not clear, I like animals more than people.

Now on to Nichole’s questions. She was the inspiration for this whole post, so thank you!!

1. What is your first memory of “making”? Doesn’t have to be your first, just a memory that stands out.

I think that my memory is a bit tainted because my Mom recently brought over a bunch of my childhood art. She included some pretty disturbing images lol

2. What inspires you to choose the mediums you work with?

I have my friend Chris Greco to thank. He’s been a mentor to me, unofficially. He was using gouache, and was telling me about it. It was the perfect medium to take on our lunch sketches because it was lightweight, portable, and easy to clean. It also is strangely similar to oil paints even though in many ways is a complete opposite. I’m a very tactile person, so I really appreciate the way the paint feels and mixes, like oil paints. Funnily, the portrait I'm including was one I did with transparent watercolor and ink.

3. What mediums have you tried and hated?

I’m not a fan of acrylic gouache like everyone is raving about. It’s a matte acrylic, I just don’t get what is so awesome about it? Transparent watercolor and I butt heads sometimes, but I’m going to keep my mind open and try it again when I gain a little more patience.

4. I notice you choose a lot of “everyday scenes”... but you seem to find joy and include all the details even if they aren’t “beautiful” (ex: traffic cones and big trash bins) What makes you decide to sit and capture a scene?

At first it was just practice. I wanted to paint everything, and I practically did! It was part as an anxiety release, because I could just shut all my thoughts out and focus on painting a thing. Eventually after painting daily for over a year, I started to think more deeply about what I was painting and why. Finding beauty in the everyday mundane scenes is something that really is important to me, because I want people to enjoy these things too. The world has so much beauty that we’re completely overlooking. Also, it's nice that you note that I paint some of the parts that a lot of people would edit out. The traffic cones, and gritty things sometimes are the most interesting parts, and painting things less-than-perfect is crucial so we stop having these unrealistic expectations of perfect worlds.

5. What inspired you to pair things like animal skulls and flowers?

Ok this might sound weird, but death is something I think of often, and I feel like I’m always trying to figure out the meaning of life. Like...on a daily basis. So it’s beautiful to me to combine something so dark seeming with something so commonly peaceful and serene representing life. People are really scared and try to avoid anything reminding them of their mortality, but really there’s a beautiful circular balance and it's best looked at straight on. It helps that there are a lot of stunning colors, if you look closely, and it’s an ongoing challenge to get it right.

6. What’s your favorite or most prized basic color

It depends on my mood, and also what it’s relative to, but a color that frequently comes to mind is the color of the sky at dusk (closest paint color I think of is “Prussian Blue”). Seeing that color almost sends a tingle through my spine when I see it. But then again, it's probably relative to the colors around it that make it so special to me. For painting, I love a beautiful and bright golden green. One I use often is Linden Green from Winsor & Newton.