All images on this page are copyright by Joe Mueller
I was born into a large artistic family and my talent became evident at an early age when drawing seemed to be my favorite past time. In high school, I started painting with florescent paints when black light posters were popular in the early 70's. Dragons and comic book super heroes were my favorite subjects. In 1980, a friend of mine, who was a commercial artist, gave me a book on the airbrush art of Philip Castle. I loved the way he used the airbrush to paint everything from Hollywood starlets to the metallic surfaces of airplanes. I went out and bought my first airbrush, a Paasche VL and taught myself to use it.
I first started painting professionally while working in the back of a motorcycle shop painting motor cycles, customers always wanted Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo paintings on their gas tanks. After a few years I wanted to take my art more seriously, and went back to school for a commercial art degree. I learned to Illustrate for ad agencies and print shops. As the computer was coming on the scene, I went back to school where I learned everything from 3D animation to illustrating with desktop publishing programs.
I learned Adobe Photoshop where I found I could apply my painting and airbrush skills to paint productively on the computer. This is a big help when being more creative and able to compete in today’s market.
I still like to paint using traditional mediums including paintbrush and airbrush but working with the digital format, I can be more productive and still use all the illustrating skills I learned.
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