I did keep drawing and painting sporadically over the years, though never with an intent to make art a career. Around 1994 a friend talked me into taking a figure drawing class taught by Gary Faigin at the Seattle Academy of Fine Art, an amazing place with incredible teachers [now renamed The Gage Academy]. I loved it, and took a portrait drawing class from Gary the following year. I also took classes at the Academy in Medieval Manuscript Illumination Techniques and Renaissance Drawing Techniques from Margaret Davidson.

In 2005-06 I completed the University of Washington's Certificate Program in Scientific Illustration, where I was particularly impressed by instructor Bart Rulon, a masterful wildlife painter with a special emphasis on birds.

More recently, I've been studying watercolor painting through North Seattle Community College's Continuing Education offerings with Molly Hashimoto, who has been instrumental in helping me loosen up my tightly controlled, analytical style.

In 2008, I took up birdwatching as a serious hobby, and met some wonderful people, including Connie Sidles, who was working on a book of essays about our favorite local birding patch. She liked my field illustrations, and I wound up doing 29 paintings and drawings for her book, "In My Nature: A Birder's Year at the Montlake Fill", available as of November 2009 through the publisher web site or at the University Bookstore and at the Seattle Audubon Nature Shop (both in Seattle).

I still have a drawing done at age 7 of a stuffed owl that was in my Uncle Worth's living room: