I am 54 years old and live in south-east Wisconsin with my wife and two dogs.

My art beginnings are a familiar story. I began drawing around the age of three, with pencil and crayon. Sometimes on the walls. Drawing seemed to be something that I took to naturally. My school teachers and family noticed it early on, and encouraged it, and so I spent most of my time off in a corner drawing pictures. It's been a constant in my life, interrupted only by my other interest, which is music.

After graduating from high school, I skipped college, and spent fifteen years working in the printing industry, performing pre-press duties such as stripping film and burning and developing printing plates. After that I worked for a couple of years in graphic design and creating and installing signage, before changing gears again and working a couple of more years silk screening art onto t-shirts, totebags, and other merchandise. In all, I spent about two decades performing some kind of visual arts job.

In 2002 I began freelancing my drawing abilities, creating illustrations for game publishers, to appear in their fantasy and science-fiction role-playing game publications. I illustrated dragons, goblins, spaceships, and other mythical creatures and scenarios. This venture took off and in 2006 I began freelancing full-time, and spent several years illustrating books, designing t-shirts, and creating album art for a few bands. I also created images for a quite a few popular black light posters, that are still out on the market. Some of them have appeared on TV shows.

As the different markets I was working in changed, so did my art interests, and I eventually once again took on a new direction. I decided that I no longer wanted to do illustration work or graphic design, and that I wanted to paint, create deeper art, and paint subjects that I felt more excited about or that interested me more. I want to make art that is more beautiful, more encouraging, more positive, and more uplifting. I began making more images of nature, life, and beauty.

So these days I have been painting a lot, in oils, acrylics, gouache, and watercolors. I've also been working in pencils, oil pastels, and charcoal. I tend to draw and paint the things in my surroundings which make my heart happiest -- home, trinkets, my faith, and nature. I am always surrounded by things that could inspire me to paint something.

I've put this small website together to share my paintings with the public, and to even sell some of them. I can't keep them all. I hope you see something here that you like.

~Mark Allen