Panthera Onca Evening Swim Print

My name is Jaime Knox and I am native to Wilmington NC and married with 3 adult children. I enjoy living in Wilmington because it’s a medium sized city close to the metropolitan areas of Charlotte and Raleigh. An added bonus to living here is that Wilmington is an hour away from the popular vacation city of Myrtle Beach. I attended the University of North Carolina Wilmington and earned a BS Communication degree in 1993. Since then, I’ve worked in as an Operator, Training Technician and Shift Technician at Corning, Inc. After being laid off in 2002, I took a completely different path and worked in law enforcement with the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office until retiring in July 2023. My biggest artist influences are Boris Vallejo and the late Frank Frazeta. You cannot mention fantasy art without recognizing the influences these 2 masters created with this genre. Paul Stowe, Jono Dry, Arinze Stanley, Diego Fazio, Egbengwu, Diego Koi, Chiamonwu Joy, and Paul Cadden are also some of my inspirational artists, because of their hyper realistic drawing ability. I’ve completed 2 or 3 hyper realistic drawings, but soon realized it takes an incredible amount of patience and attention to detail which is why I really admire anyone who creates in this genre. I use graphite, carbon pencils and charcoal. Mostly because I have difficulty with color. While not color blind, I have a hard time distinguishing blue/purple, gray/green, and a few others. When I began drawing, graphite just felt like the natural choice for me because I had more control of the outcome. I really like Paul Stowe’s technique of scumbling which is drawing small circles to build texture, which he will blend, erase and repeat. I was leaning toward hyper realism but changed course when I drew a pic for a client and the photograph I used and the drawing looked the same. I thought why am I drawing a copy of what you have. Since then, I tend to leave out a good bit of details required in hyper realism and add expression. I really like the look of the pencil lines and how it makes the viewer interpret what they see or how it makes the eye follow a particular movement. I’m still a big fan of hyper realism and still intend to work in that genre. I also started using AI to display what I envision in my mind. Years ago, an artist would do a rough sketch and add notes concerning light etc.