On Inspiration and Process
I believe that just as all things in the human body are connected and assist each other physically and spiritually, so too does everything in the universe. I see my work as expressing spiritual emotions about this inter-connectedness. We all have physical, emotional, mental and spiritual parts to us, and I try to engage all of these elements while doing a piece of art.
I started as and artist doing representational work of landscapes, still lives and figures that gradually changed to my abstract work, but the influence of nature remains based on my observations of nature. I believe nature’s proportions and compositions are perfect, especially when filtered through the imagination.
Sometimes I just stand in front of the canvas or paper and look at all the colors next to me and chose what strikes me the strongest and go from there, building colors, marks, shapes and lines together. Often after doing a series of three or four I’ll stop and lay them out on the floor and study them for some days.
There is always a little that needs to be done to resolve them but I don’t hurry or the work could get ruined. New ideas come sometimes from just lying down and reflecting on what I want to do next. The pieces I have just done give me ideas for continuing the series or maybe starting one based on a single color I liked from one of them.
All these ideas started when I was looking for something new I had never done before. While looking, the first thing that came to mind was a series of quick small pastel sketches on grey sand paper, done some years before that I never developed. I got larger pastel sandpaper with the grey background and am now converting those to larger oils on canvas.
In order to develop my techniques I’ve studied up close the surfaces of works of art by great masters, and learned how to incorporate these techniques into my own. I then push beyond these techniques by building on them.
On Technique and History
I’ve always loved painting landscapes and seascapes. I tried using acrylics once but oil seems to fit me better. I started out in watercolor before deciding to be an artist in high school and enjoyed it and still paint with it sometime. When I paint scenes of nature it isn’t much different than painting the figure or still life. In all of these modes of painting it is the vital connection I make with the brush and paint onto canvas through all my being - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual - that moves the painting along to its completion.
Initially I started painting nature by plain air, then gradually, after learning directly from nature, I was able to invent my own paintings and most of the oils on here are done that way. It was like learning vocabulary to be able to speak without having to look up words anymore. And when I need to refresh my memory on what certain natural things look like again, I study them directly from nature or from a photograph just like a writer who forgets what a word means or the correct grammatical structure is need for a sentence refers to authoritative sources. I can’t see myself ever stopping painting naturally images.
Initially I started painting nature by plain air, then gradually, after learning directly from nature, I was able to invent my own paintings and most of the oils on here are done that way. It was like learning vocabulary to be able to speak without having to look up words anymore. And when I need to refresh my memory on what certain natural things look like again, I study them directly from nature or from a photograph just like a writer who forgets what a word means or the correct grammatical structure is need for a sentence refers to authoritative sources. I can’t see myself ever stopping painting naturally images.