About

 

From a very early age I recognized that I had an ability to express my ideas, emotions and personal interests through art. When all the other kids were playing ball or doing what normal kids do, I was spending all my time alone with my thoughts and whatever art materials I could scrounge.  This time and my developing ability gave me and escape from the ordinary and set me on a path to make art my life.

 

Born and raised in Arizona as the oldest of three boys, we moved all over the United States after our mother joined the Air Force. My first formal training in art came from the Santa Barbara Community College and eventually the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). It was during my time in college that I was introduced to the great variety of applications oil paint can be used for and now I paint with nothing else. My early artistic focus had been on allegorical figural work, but the landscape of northern California and the coast took root in my imagination and eventually I began to paint more and more landscapes.  In a very short time sales of the landscapes began to outpace everything else and my focus shifted.

 

In 1995 I met my future wife in San Francisco, and our first child was born in 2001. The desire for finding a healthier environment in which to raise our family led us to move 2,725-mile to Watkinsville, Georgia. Initially the contrast between the rocky California coastal desert and the lush greens of the Southeast was a challenging transition to make, but it didn't take long for the rich, verdant environment to have an effect on my artistic impulses.  

 

My process begins with a loose charcoal drawing on canvas, I then apply a simple wash of raw umber in Turpenoid, wiping out the highlights to establish the contrast. After that dries I begin painting directly, starting with the furthest part of the painting first, usually the sky. I work with Rembrandt brand oil paints and use Liquin as my medium. I work as quickly and thinly as I can to cover the entire canvas in the first session (more complex paintings like “Rainy Day Falls” require a different approach) so that my color at the edges can blend easily. At this stage the painting (depending on size) is about 25% done. Once dry I begin again in the furthest portion of the painting and begin working forward again, this time focusing more on the detail and the subtle interplay with darks and lights.

 

Landscape painting epitomizes to me the creative impulse in one of its purest forms.  Many of my subjects are places that I pass frequently and hardly notice until and I see it in a new way because of a new lighting effect. In every painting I do, I try to distill the purest reflection of what initially attracted me to the scene as convincingly as possible.