Jd Emmerson

I spent a good 15 years growing up in Cedar Falls, Iowa and drawing since I was six, self-taught for over a decade and winning awards along the way. At the age of 12, I would most often follow my mom to work on the weekends and spend hours learning techniques and styles from the professional illustrators at Hellman Design & Associates - my mom was a lead designer. This had a tremendous impact on my art. I mastered graphite, color pencil, watercolors and the airbrush. Winner of the National Safety Poster Contest. I have always surrounded myself with creative legends and learned as much as I could from them.

With a polished portfolio I entered college for my AAA and BFA degrees. My new skills included advanced airbrush, drawing techniques and hyper realism in several different mediums. I won a gold medal in the VICA Skill Olympics for my advanced skills with the airbrush, awarded to me by President Ronald Reagan in Nashville, Tennessee in 1984. I freelanced while I was in college and got the education of a lifetime. An art director hired me to create several portraits for a magazine article. By the time I was finished, I had advanced tremendously and became known for my hyper realism style with color pencil portraits.

I then mo...

AAA Degree at Hawkeye Institute of Technology, Waterloo, Iowa - 1983
BFA Degree at Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri - 1987

1999: Sophie Art Gallerie, Bangkok, Thailand
2015: Enigma Art Gallery, Studio City, CA.
2015: Enigma Art Gallery, Studio City, CA.
2016: Enigma Art Gallery, Studio City, CA.
2016: Fulton Crossing Art Gallery, Fulton, CA
2019: Fulton Crossing Art Gallery, Fulton, CA
2020: Simmer Cafe Art Gallery, Rohnert Park, CA