
Sitting With This Young Man You Can’t Help But Be Impressed.
He is incredibly mature, driven, disciplined and knows what he wants. Joel Snell is a 21-year-old Chestermere resident and is an incredibly accomplished artist that has a bright future.
His drawings are filled with incredible detail, which is how he sees the world. He began drawing at the age of 4 and his drawings then could arguably be stated were of a tad higher quality than your average 4-year-old and continues to hone his craft everyday. This self-taught artist shows an incredible natural talent, and will no doubt have a solid place in the world of creative arts.
His Favorite Subject Matter is The Human Face & The Uniqueness & Nuance Of It.
He is extremely detail oriented where you almost feel if you can reach out and touch and explore each feature of his subjects.
When it comes to his drawings he spends literally weeks to find a suitable photo that will allow him to capture not only the look but the feel and emotion of each piece. He looks for beauty in the mundane. To live in his head is to see the world in a very different way. I couldn’t help but wonder as we spoke if he was studying my face. But somehow the imperfections and the wrinkles are seen as character in his eyes, and those human imperfections become the life of his drawings.
His family is very proud and extremely supportive of his craft and he has maintained a humility that will only push him further as he looks up to and admires other artists.
He shares a story on the power of art on the human condition. He spoke of a couple that had recently married and the 2 families did not see eye to eye on many things including their own relationship. As family rifts go, this carried on over time. The bride commissioned him to do a drawing of them on there wedding day but Joel added the late family members in both sides into the piece.

When other members of the family saw the piece, they were moved to reach out to this couple and fences began to be repaired. The power of a piece of artwork stretching over the generations was the catalyst to begin to heal fractured family dynamics.
As he has not quite figured out where he wants to take his art, he says he would love to start doing bigger art as most of his offerings are a smaller 8 x 10 format, but feels that a large medium will allow him to explore even more detail and possibly the cross section of a face where the dramatic effect with detail can be explored to its ultimate form.
Each drawing can literally take weeks and he finds himself being exhausted through the process of going deep into his drawings.

Joel feels that art is teachable and will be starting some classes in the future so stay tuned.
I guess I can sum this up as my conversation with Joel was inspiring and I sit in awe of his talent. If you would like to see his work or contact him for commissions check out his social media on Instagram and Facebook under @joelsnellart.
– Graydon Pease

Joel Snell