About My Work
Currently I focus my efforts on three different bodies of work that I have been pursuing for some time now. First there are ink, and graphite (pencil) drawings. The second body of work consists of realistic paintings and the third is made up of paintings that I would describe as more expressive and stylized.
When I work with ink it is contemplative and the image develops slowly. Each session tends to be an almost meditative activity. The purpose of every moment of time spent on a piece is to bring my attention to focus on the technique, development, design, and meaning of it. The tools used are minimal and basic; a stick pen with a fine nib and ink or a graphite pencil.
When I produce realistic pieces I tend to use oil paints but have recently been working more and more with acrylics. This body of work is made up entirely of landscapes. I am an outdoors person and rural and wilderness scenes are the focus of this work. I tend to draw and photograph on site and then develop the work in my studio but over the past couple of years I have been doing more and more painting on location.
When I produce the more expressive and stylized paintings the process is in many ways the opposite of the pen and ink process. It is quick, it is intuitive but the execution of the work is carefully planned and sometimes even rehearsed before it is finally carried out. It seems contradictory to describe the work as intuitive and then to say I rehearse what I am going to do before I execute the process. I rehearse the steps I will follow and the order in which I will execute the steps. However; once I begin it is an intuitive process as to where and how I move the paint on the canvas. It is much more difficult to produce the desired outcome on a consistent basis with this method but often the surprises that occur are desirable.
I focus very definitely on the crafts of drawing and painting. The workmanship that I put into producing each piece is the purpose of the piece. Whether it is successful as a work of art is to some extent of lesser importance to me. The ongoing focus of my professional development is the effective use of color and brush techniques to enhance the texture, depth and realism in my paintings. I also focus on developing paintings and drawings that come together with solid compositional structure.