This is my story..........So far.

I've tried to make the most of this short life up to this point, especially in the past twlve years.

I guess you would say that my "rebirth" came when I decided the best course for me would be to join the U.S. Marines in August of 1994.  While all of my friends were off in college living it up, I was enduring four of the most grueling yet personally challenging and satisfying years of my life.  During my enlistment, I had the rare fortune to travel most of the world and experience things and places that the majority of  Earth's population will never know.  Each time I visited another country, or tasted a new food or tried to learn enough of the local language to get myself by, I ratchetted up my knowledge and understanding of people and how to create art that speaks to almost anyone.  I found that even though I couldn't talk to people, I could draw for them.  It was quite the eye opener for an eighteen year old kid with a grudge who could only find solace in his artwork.  To this day, I still practice my techniques and methods for creating work that makes you stop and want to look.  I have the world to thank for how far I've come.  

After that exciting adventure, I decided it was finally time to go to art school and get myself a degree in Special Effects under the title of Industrial Design.  This seems to be a rare thing as no one I've met in the art world has this type of degree(except for the people I went to school with of course)and I only know of a few places that offer it.  I had the serious advantage and priveledge of learning from some of the most talented and not so talented teachers at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.  Everything from Auto-Cad to Silicone mold making to mixed media rendering.  It's only just recently that I taught myself to draw on the computer(something I swore I'd never do) and I'm steadily getting better and better each time I sit down to create something new.

To make this long story short, I now find myself as an Art teacher at the Academy  of Art University in San Francisco in the Industrial Design Department.  I teach model making and all of the processes, techniques and materials that go into making them, and Digital Imaging where I instruct students in the inner workings of drawing on the computer using Photoshop, Corel Painter and Illustrator.  

Somewhere in the course of all this activity I've managed to get married, have a daughter and learn something new everyday.  Yeah, it's been quite a life so far......

Anyway, enough about me.  I've always been a firm believer that work should speak louder than whoever's talking.  Enjoy the work and feel free to leave me an Email if you see something that you like, or if you see something that you don't.  Either way, I'd love to hear from you.  Thanks for checking me out!

Dave Melvin