For the past 25 years, Marty Kelly has worked as a full-time traditionally published children’s book author & illustrator. Realistic portrait work in watercolor and pencil has always been his passion, however. Marty’s current focus is split between creating highly realistic portrait art and working with stone, metal, and wood to create organic sculptures that surprise and delight viewers with materials being used in unexpected ways. Working in two entirely separate ways– tightly rendered realism in his portraiture and much rougher abstract work in stone– has afforded Marty time to explore ways the two disciplines can inform each other. Each way of creating makes Marty think in different ways and brings him joy when he’s making art.