Behind the Scenes: Creating Art with a Story

Art is not merely about aesthetics; it is a powerful medium that conveys emotions, ideas, and stories. Every piece of art has a narrative behind it, often reflecting the artist's experiences, thoughts, and the world around them. In this blog post, we will explore the intricate process of creating art that tells a story, delving into the inspiration, techniques, and the emotional journey that artists embark upon.

The Importance of Storytelling in My Art

For me, art has never been about making something look beautiful and stopping there. I want every painting to mean something. I want it to carry a memory, a struggle, a belief, or a part of my life that I have never been able to fully explain with words.

Storytelling is what gives my work its purpose. Every piece becomes a place where I can pour my heart and soul into something real. Some paintings come from grief, while others come from faith, anger, depression, sacrifice, or the simple need to keep moving forward when part of me feels like giving up. The story is what turns the work into more than paint on a surface. It becomes proof of what I felt, what I endured, and what I was still able to create from it.

Connection

When a piece tells an honest story, people can recognize parts of themselves within it. They may not have experienced the exact same loss or struggle, but they understand pain, hope, betrayal, fear, and perseverance.

That connection matters to me. I want viewers to feel as though they are not simply looking at my work from the outside. I want them to enter it, stand inside the emotion, and possibly find words for something they have carried silently.

Emotion

The paintings that mean the most to me usually begin with an emotion I cannot ignore. Sometimes the feeling is clear. Other times, I only understand it after I begin painting.

I use art to give those emotions a physical form.

A storm can become grief. A dark room can become depression. A figure surrounded by light can become the presence of Christ in the middle of suffering.z

I want the viewer to feel something before they fully understand what they are seeing. The emotion should reach them first, and the story should continue unfolding afterward.

Context

The story behind most of my art gives the viewer a deeper understanding of why certain subjects, symbols, colors, and compositions were chosen.

A wolf may not simply be a wolf. It may represent someone who has survived betrayal and no longer looks at the world with the same innocence. A falcon pierced by an arrow may represent the desire to remain strong and keep moving despite physical limitations. A ship traveling into a storm may represent grief so deep that returning home no longer feels possible.

The image may be beautiful on its own, but the story reveals the part of me that exists beneath the surface.

Storytelling Through the Artists

Who Inspire Me

The artists who inspire me understood how lighting, detail, scale, and symbolism could turn an image into something greater than a simple representation.

Albert Bierstadt created landscapes that feel almost larger than life. His dramatic mountains, glowing skies, and vast environments make the viewer feel small in comparison to the world around them. His work inspires me to create scenes that feel monumental and emotionally overwhelming, where the environment becomes part of the story rather than simply the background.

Jan van Eyck used extraordinary detail and symbolism to give ordinary objects deeper meaning. His careful attention to fabric, reflections, architecture, and facial expression showed how realism can invite a viewer to slow down and search for the story hidden within an image. His work reminds me that even the smallest detail can carry purpose.

Caravaggio used intense light and darkness to bring biblical and human suffering directly before the viewer. His figures feel physical, vulnerable, and real rather than distant or idealized. His use of chiaroscuro inspires me to use light not only to reveal the subject, but also to communicate conflict, faith, pain, and redemption.

Their work influences the way I approach my own paintings. Bierstadt inspires the scale, van Eyck inspires the detail, and Caravaggio inspires the emotional power of light and darkness. Together, they remind me that beauty becomes more meaningful when it carries a story beneath the surface.

Where My Inspiration Comes From

My inspiration often comes from the things that have left a permanent mark on me.

Many of my paintings begin with something I have endured or struggled to understand. My military experience, depression, faith, physical limitations, grief, and personal losses all find their way into the work.

I do not always paint these experiences literally. Instead, I turn them into symbols, environments, animals, and figures. That distance allows me to say something personal without explaining every detail directly.

Faith

My Christian faith is one of the strongest sources behind my work. I often return to images of Christ, sacrifice, suffering, redemption, and the belief that God remains present even when life feels completely dark.

When I painted Jesus wounded and wearing the crown of thorns, I was not only thinking about His suffering. I was also trying to express the feeling that He was beside me during one of the darkest periods of my life. Painting became the gift that allowed me to express what I could not say aloud.

Nature and Animals

Animals often represent qualities I either recognize within myself or have spent my life trying to become. The speed and strength of a peregrine falcon became a symbol of everything I wanted while growing up with asthma. The stare of a wolf became a way to express betrayal, exhaustion, and survival. Animals allow me to explore human emotion without having to show it through a human face.

Memory and Imagination

I have always had a strong imagination. Growing up, I spent hours watching anime and cartoons, playing scenes out in my head, and drawing them in my grandma and grandpa’s camper.

That part of me never disappeared. I still imagine entire worlds, moments, and stories before putting them onto a surface. The difference is that the stories now carry more of my life within them.

Capturing Inspiration

Inspiration can disappear as quickly as it arrives, so I try to preserve it before it fades.

Writing

Writing allows me to understand what a painting may be trying to say. Sometimes I begin with a phrase, title, memory, prayer, or emotion. The words help me find the heart of the image before I begin worrying about the details.

Sketching

Sketches give me the freedom to explore without needing the idea to be perfect. I can move figures, test symbols, change the lighting, and allow the composition to evolve.

The sketch is where the story first begins to take a visible form.

Photography and References

Photography helps me understand anatomy, lighting, textures, environments, and physical details. References allow me to ground an imagined scene in reality.

Even when a painting comes from a dreamscape or emotional memory, realism can make the story feel as though it truly exists.

My Creative Process

Creating a painting is rarely a straight path. It usually involves instinct, planning, doubt, experimentation, and the willingness to keep working until the image begins to feel alive.

1. Developing the Concept

Most pieces begin with an emotion or an image that stays in my mind.

I ask myself what the painting is really about. I may begin with grief, but the deeper subject could be abandonment. I may begin with a wounded animal, but the painting may actually be about resilience. Finding that deeper meaning helps guide every choice that follows.

2. Experimentation

Once I understand the emotional direction, I experiment with composition, lighting, color, pose, and symbolism.

I am drawn to dramatic contrast and chiaroscuro because darkness and light often reflect the emotional conflict within my work. I may move figures, simplify the background, exaggerate the lighting, or change the perspective until the scene feels powerful enough to carry the story.

3. Execution

When I begin the final work, I try to remain faithful to the original feeling that inspired it.

Technique matters, especially because realism and beauty are important to me. But technical skill means very little unless the work still contains emotion. I do not want the painting to become so polished that it loses the pain, urgency, or honesty that gave it life.

This is where I pour myself into the piece. Each layer becomes another attempt to communicate something I may not have been able to express anywhere else.

4. Reflection and Refinement

After working on a piece for a long time, I have to step back and ask whether it still carries the original emotion.

I look at the lighting, posture, expression, and atmosphere. I ask whether the story can be felt before it is explained. Refinement is not only about correcting mistakes. It is about removing anything that distracts from the heart of the work.

Techniques I Use to Tell a Story

Symbolism

Symbolism allows one image to hold several meanings.

An arrow can represent limitation, pain, or an obstacle that refuses to leave. A crown of thorns can represent suffering, humiliation, sacrifice, and grace. A distant light can represent hope that still exists even when the subject believes it has disappeared.

These symbols allow the viewer to enter the painting through their own experiences.

Color

Color determines how the painting feels before the viewer understands what is happening.

Dark blues and grays can create isolation, sorrow, or emotional distance. Warm golds can suggest hope, faith, memory, or the presence of something beyond the darkness. Red may represent violence, sacrifice, life, or spiritual intensity.

I use color to shape the emotional atmosphere of the story.

Composition

The placement of every figure and object affects how the viewer experiences the painting.

A subject standing alone can feel isolated. A figure moving toward a storm can create a sense of surrender or danger. A small light placed far behind the subject can make hope feel distant but still present.

Composition allows me to control what the viewer sees first and how they move through the story.

Light and Darkness

Light is one of the most important elements in my work.

I am drawn to darkness because it reflects the places where many of my paintings begin. But I rarely want the darkness to be completely empty. Even the smallest light can suggest that something remains—faith, love, memory, or the possibility of healing.

Sometimes the subject cannot see the light, but the viewer can. That difference becomes part of the story.

Connecting With the Audience

Artist Statements

Artist statements allow me to give viewers a doorway into the work. I do not want to explain every symbol or control what someone feels, but I want to share enough of the truth behind the painting that they understand why it exists.

The statement becomes another layer of the artwork. It tells the viewer where the piece came from while still leaving room for their own interpretation.

Sharing the Process

Showing sketches, unfinished stages, references, and thoughts behind a painting allows people to understand how much of myself goes into the final piece.

The finished image may appear controlled, but the process behind it often contains uncertainty, frustration, change, and emotional struggle. Sharing that journey makes the work feel more human.

Conversation

The greatest response I can receive is not simply that a painting is beautiful. It is when someone tells me that the work reminded them of something they survived, helped them feel understood, or gave them a new way to see their own experience.

That is when the story becomes larger than me.

The Role of Feedback

Feedback can be difficult because the work is personal. When a painting carries part of my heart, criticism can feel as though someone is criticizing the experience behind it.

Still, honest feedback helps me grow.

It can reveal where the composition is unclear, where the emotion is not reaching the viewer, or where technical choices are weakening the story. Another person may notice something I have become too close to see.

Feedback also reminds me that art does not exist only in the artist’s mind. Once the work is shown, it begins creating meaning through the people who experience it.

Conclusion

Creating art with a story is not simply part of my process. It is the reason I create.

I want to make work that is beautiful, but I also want that beauty to carry scars. I want the paintings to hold grief, faith, anger, love, sacrifice, depression, perseverance, and every part of life that is difficult to explain.

Each piece is an attempt to take something buried inside me and place it where it can finally be seen. Sometimes I feel as though I am pouring whatever remains of my heart and soul into the work. That vulnerability can be exhausting, but it is also what gives the art meaning.

My paintings are not meant to say that I have overcome everything. They are evidence that I was here, that I felt it, that I survived long enough to create something from it, and that even the darkest experiences can be transformed into an image capable of reaching someone else.