Medium: Water Painting

I use traditional watercolor layering techniques, but with my own sequence for painting the various elements. After drawing a very precise drawing using a light pencil grid, with the contours delineated and the changes in value laid in like a map, I begin by painting light washes of varying shades of yellow. Next, I paint my background, starting at the upper left-hand corner and ending at the lower right-hand corner. My last area to paint is my center of interest. I prefer to leave it to the end, because by the time I get to it, I am in a rhythm. Often, I do not feel that the painting "gels" until I am very close to the end. Even when I think I am finished, I have to step back and consider what adjustments I still need to make in the values. Looking at the painting in dim light helps me to see what changes are necessary. I use photographs as my source, sometimes as composites and sometimes as rearranged or cropped images. I usually place my center of interest at a point where imaginary lines would intersect were the picture plane divided into thirds. I do all the work on my paintings myself.

For subjects, I choose images that move me deeply. Often, these images are "extracted" ones from my surroundings. By this I mean that they are ones that naturally occur in the world as I observe it. Occasionally I will set a scene for a painting, but I prefer capturing scenes that I come upon that move me with a sense of visual wonder. I look for those scenes where I am stopped cold in my tracks with a gut feeling that something is so beautiful in a bold and dramatic way that it cries out to be painted. Whether I am painting botanical subjects, exotic animals, or ancient stone sculptures, I concentrate on the play of light and shadow. In the photographs that I use as source material, I strive for crisp, in focus positive spaces and out of focus, negative ones. I often paint subjects with contrasting colors, intense color saturation and exaggerated values.

Please feel free to ask me about my paintings. Each one has a story behind it that I enjoy telling.