2014 was my 10 year anniversary as an anime artist. It was exciting to realize I have been drawing in an anime-style for that long. And after participating in the SAKURA Exhibition, an art exhibition with over 100 Japanese artists which showed throughout Japan and California, I was really inspired to share all that I had created up to that point.
So my first show debuted in Chicago as the AnimeSpice Art Show, “A showcase of 10 years of anime-influenced artwork created by artist AnimeSpice”.

See more pictures from the show on my facebook page!

Was it easy to put together? No. I faced rejection from a few locations, and only had a couple months to pull together the large prints and hanging tools & materials. Another project, my personal art book, which I had started compiling at the beginning of the year with a slow start, needed to be complete in just a few weeks in order to debut at the show. It was a very hectic time, but it all pulled together in the last minute. (thank goodness!)

Pushing to get the art book done was a huge project in itself, since I need to scrounge around for all my old drawings and art files, create the graphic design for each page, AND finish the color on a new drawing of Spice-chan for the cover. That’s 10 years worth of work in one book. Crazy. But I hoped it might compliment the show.

After the debut, I went on to do a couple more repeat shows throughout Chicago. And also ended up in a few newspapers as a result (which is actually kind of embarrassing for me!) If you haven’t been to any of the shows, I recommend picking up the book, since most of the art is there, plus most of my really early work. You can see how I ended up from my 1st drawing (below) to my most recent.

My first colored anime drawing….. yikes.

There’s also an interview and a mini step-by-step tutorial in the back.

I realize this is beginning to sound like a book pitch, haha. But I spent a lot of time not being very proud of my art and never really sharing it with anyone in my waking life. So I’m super excited to even be talking about it now. You can find the book at AnimeSpiceStore.com.

There will be lots more art to see soon, so be sure to follow me! Thanks for reading and adding a little anime “spice” to everyday life!

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