Welcome to my website.
As you can tell my art revolves around portraiture. I work exclusively
in oils for my paintings and prefer a mixture of graphite and carbon
pencil/charcoal for drawings. Recently
Karen and I purchased a new camera, a Canon T3i to aid in taking reference
photos for my work as well as for Karen's artwork with flowers. It is such a
fantastic camera that I am tempted to retake the photos of some of my artwork
that we still have available, but that is for another time. The quality of the pictures got me to
thinking about an age old debate: photography vs. painting/drawing....camera
vs. artist. Great photography requires
talent, skill, great equipment, and lots of time and effort. Notice I said
GREAT photography as in professional or top amateur. Mastering the nuances of
the equipment itself, composing the shot or capturing what nature gives you and
manipulating the light is way beyond what most people think of as photography
when they shoot a snapshot with their phone or point and shoot camera. Not that
it’s impossible to make a great shot with limited knowledge and equipment but
it becomes more difficult to achieve stellar results. In short, it requires
EFFORT. Same as painting or drawing or sculpting or any other artwork done by
hand. That’s why I have great respect and admiration for those that achieve
outstanding results in any field of expression. So why bother with painting and
drawing when so much can be done by equipment, i.e. camera, computer etc...?
Let me ask you, how many people do you personally know that have a hand painted
or hand drawn work of art in their home, let alone a portrait of themselves,
their spouse, child, grandchild or parents? Not many I’m sure. Because artwork
created by human hand is unique. A top notch photographer can produce exciting
portrait work but an excellent true to life portrait in oil created with
thousands of brushstrokes by human hand still has a charm and quality that are
unmatched by anything produced by a printer no matter what the quality it is.
To me, each have earned their own place at the table of the visual arts, both
painter and photographer.
To me the camera is simply a tool. Like an extra brush or maul stick. Ideally I like to use photos for reference and combine the best of both worlds: photo and life. Use the photo for the convenience and life to get it right. However that is not always possible with portrait work for the average client. Life and distance and time get in the way. Therefore I try to make the painting true to the photo and then 'enhance' it in anyway I can to make it even more lifelike and not strictly a copy of the shot. This requires a lot of judgment and observation to pull it off. I like to think of it as Photoshop with a brush. A real brush.
