Michael “Warble” Finucane began his artistic career in 2001, when he decided that illustrating and painting was his main objective in life. Without any formal training, Warble studied art history and art techniques with an autodidactic vigor. His first pencil sketches were essentially Aubrey Beardsley imitations; like so many other artists that had utilized a line perspective and compositional theme in this art nouveau tradition.
With this inspiration, pen and ink soon followed to cover the pencil lines, and Warble’s classic “tarot card” style was created. This term for his drawings was part of the trend in faery art circles that saw a potential for simplistic, yet unique, various esoteric medieval figures depicted on tarot cards. In essence, Warble’s style was crude and symbolic, yet it had the beginnings of an artistic discipline that would slowly grow and evolve over the next two years.
The piece “Tristan and Isolde” is an often published and known work from this period. Other works like “The Bard” capture a maturing line quality and use of stark black and white contrast, which, in turn, signaled the end of pen and ink as his sole medium of choice.



            After studying anatomy, perspective, and the careful construction of line work with pencil and ink for about two years, Warble received requests by other artists to try out the painting medium. For Warble, the idea of color was a challenging prospectus, especially because he had been so accustomed to pencil and ink.
With this burgeoning new medium in mind, he decided to begin looking into art history to see if any particular color stylization could provide inspiration. After discovering the monumental work of Margaret MacDonald’s “The May Queen”, Warble was inspired enough by her work to include her as an influence in his own work. The wife of Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a unique artist that was often over-shadowed in a patriarchal 19th and 20th century society that did not recognize her genius—she had done much of the decorated furniture and interior design of Mackintosh’s architecture.
Warble was fascinated by “The May Queen” and it remains a pivotal use of design and colorization that gives his work a unique twilight feel in the oranges and yellows he incorporates into his paintings.  Along with the work of Jan Toorop and Joseph Hoffman, a style was waiting to come forth that would transform the way and manner in which Warble’s art would grow to greater proportions and thematic expressions in the fantasy art field.

  

            Warble’s interest in faery culture and art has been a major inspiration to begin working on color paintings. Watercolor was by far the most flexible and experimental use of color that he had found, so he began working on various faeries that he had sketched sporadically back in the late nineties.
In this capacity, Warble was able to work diligently on the process of colorization to his illustrations, which became very popular in this thematic type of fantasy and faery art.
After creating such pieces as “Two Faerie Mothers and Daughter” and “Wings are Spread” he found a cult following through the underground of artists that had sprung forth with the success of Amy Brown and also with the resurgence of Brian Froud’s works as major “fae culture” representative.
Furthermore, interest in medieval literature brought about the painting “Courtly Love” and the paintings “Lancelot and Guinevere I & II” through Arthurian textual symbolism and troubadour music of the Middle Ages.
After winning the Froudian Artist of Year for 2005 at Brian’s website, Warble began to be known as a cultish figure in faery art circles with high art fantasy fans. Although Warble did not use as much pop art sensibility in the widespread appeal of Amy Brown’s teenage faeries, he made a strong impression with a unique style of art that represents the faery world and many of its fantastical elements.



            By 2006, Warble painted nearly 80 black and white illustrations and nearly 100 watercolor paintings. With a discipline to paint every day in some capacity, he accumulated a body of work that became known in such publications as Faerie Magazine, Pirates Magazine, Other Magazine, Pentacle Magazine, and even an international literary publication, The Taj Mahal Review.
With an expansively diverse collection of themes outside of the faery art culture, there was a growing interest in how Warble might approach other fantasy-based embodiments of art. With an illustrative approach to furthering his style, the Hugo Nominated e-zine, Strange Horizons, published a gallery of Warble’s work in 2007 to showcase this style.  In “The Boarding Gang” Warble was able to generate a more illustrative, rather than design-based, advance in drawing and painting.
After being associated with the Frouds for many years, Candace Savage of Gypsy Moon helped Warble develop a silk painting style by providing silk scarves and other materials to the artist. By developing different mediums, Warble was able to further challenge himself outside of painting.
In connection with Warble’s new illustrative style, David Hallenbeck—an up and coming playwright and author from Los Angeles—asked Warble to illustrate a young adult book on Joan of Arc for 2008. Also, Women of the Myst under the leadership of Rhonda Napoleon invited Warble to be the Guest Artist at the Cloudcroft, New Mexico Renaissance Faire for 2007.
With these current developments in illustrative and design-based stylization, new styles most assuredly lie ahead in his quest for the great mystery of artistic aesthetic fulfillment. Warble has grown as an artist and continues to find new ways to advance and evolve a unique style that blends medieval themes with modern abstractions in the art nouveau tradition.