After nearly 23 years of collecting, trading, and hoarding Pokémon cards, I’m doing something new: Painting them.

As a child, I always imagined what could be lurking behind that neon yellow border that encloses every Pocket Monster illustration. Lush, golden wheat fields? Dangerous jungles? Bubbling rapids?

As an older, developing artist, I decided to take to the brush and “erase” that border that I loathed so much. After practicing my card-painting skills for quite some time, people began coming to me, asking me to “retouch” their own cards from decades ago that had once meant so much to them. Scratched Pikachus, bent Magikarps, old and faded Charizards – so many sent to me just so they could have one last chance in the spotlight.

I use old pieces of nostalgic cardboard as canvasses and do my best to breathe new life into them with a little bit of acrylic paint.

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