Hello Everyone,

I WON THE ART COMPETITION!

I'm very pleased to announce that thanks to all of your votes I am one of the two winners of the Anata Gallery art contest for May 2011!  With the help of all of you who voted for me my work will now not only be featured in their gallery book but also be appearing on the cover of the book which means terrific exposure that money can't buy! I thank each of you who took the time to vote for me, to have your friends & family vote for me as well; it means a great deal to an artist to have that kind of public support.

Please click on the images below to see them in greater detail.

I'd like to welcome you to my website and tell you I appreciate you stopping by;  I hope you're enjoying your visit & will tell your friends and family about Mike Sexton Studio.  I have had several emails asking questions about myself so I thought I'd list a few of them along with my responses so you can get to know me a bit better rather than just another artist who has a website among the millions of websites in cyberspace.

I've been interested in Egyptian art, culture and history since I was a child.  I think it was the sixth grade when I first began learning about ancient Egypt in Social Studies and since then I've been hooked.  I've read every book, seen every show and checked out as many websites as I can get my hands on.  I don't know if it's the mystery behind their early civilization, their religion or what but the entire package has always been a real passion of mine.

Actually it's not as mysterious or exciting as it might seem but first let me tell you where it did NOT come from.  It didn't come from the Rapper, the 60's cartoon or the "Birdman of Alcatraz"- I have those dropped to me all the time.  I just became nicknamed "Birdman" because in my late teens I developed a fascination with wild birds of all sorts and became an amateur ornithologist(bird scientist).  Then when I came online and got into creating graphics I used that nickname for my screen name and that's how the "Birdman" got started.

That depends on how u mean; if you mean sig tags then it's about 2001; if you mean professionally- that'd be since 2005 but if you mean creating in general, since I was a little birdie.

I use Paint Shop Pro and my graphic tablet the most;  I must admit that I'd be lost without my graphic tablet;  it lets me fine tune a lot of features on my work & add details that you can only get with using a tablet or going at it with a brush.

Wow, I always appreciate it when my work creates a question for someone.  Actually the idea came to me when I was painting "Snowball Fight";  I thought it'd be cool to see a couple of penguins building a snowman.

That particular piece took me about a week to get completely finished;  I kept fine tuning parts and replacing different spots that didn't look quite right as the project went along.

Actually most of the time the titles come to me as I'm finishing a painting; from what I've read, most book authors have the same issue but once in a while I will come up with the title before I paint it.  Once in a blue moon though I'm even stumped AFTER I've painted and so I take a few extra days til I get a working title to use.

Hmmm., I'd say some ideas that friends have been throwing my way as well as my general imagination.  I finished 2 new pieces; I seem to work in cycles sometimes; for example, in the past month I've worked on 2 NEW Egyptian paintings as well as a couple of new Celtic Knot paintings.  It really depends on what ideas I have at the time as well as whatever I'm seeing or watching; such as last year I painted "The Gateway to Hall of Truth" after I watched a documentary on the Book of the Dead that the Egyptians used in ancient times;  a vision came to me and I had to create it.  A couple of friends gave me a few ideas which turned into "Mom & Cub" as well as "Father & Son" but the Egyptian ones and the Celtic knots were mainly my own idea;  I always like to push myself with my work and take on new avenues.  Whatever I'm working on I make sure to add a bit of myself into it to give its own unique style & flair.

I have very little of that but when I do manage a bit I like to spend it with my dogs and bird; playing with them, watching a little television, going for a hike to do some birdwatching which is how I originally got my nickname-my love for birds as well as taking my camera along to capture some photographs.  I also try to be active in animal welfare causes as well as environmental and social causes as much as possible.  I feel we all have to do our part;  it's one thing to complain about it, it's entirely another to get up and do something about it.(End of soapbox hehe).

Here is a digital photograph I took at our local lake a couple of years back.  You'll see the normal picture I took and what I did with it to give it some special touches.  If you think this might be something you'd be interested in having done to some of your photos, by all means contact me.

Here is a picture of my 2 beautiful and handsome dogs.  You'll see the normal picture I took and what I did with it to give it some special touches.  If you think this might be something you'd be interested in having done to some of your photographs, by all means contact me.

Mike Sexton Studio's Social Media Center