I earned a B.F.A. in painting at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign in 1979, and an M.F.A. in painting and drawing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983. My work has always been narrative, and my interest in story telling eventually led me to write and illustrate picture books for children starting in 1998. I have five published books to date. I have been teaching drawing at the college level since 1979. I am a professor in the Department of Art and Visual Culture in the College of Design at Iowa State University where I coordinate our Drawing I course and teach advanced courses in narrative drawing, character and scene design.