I have been working with paint and brushes for as long as I can remember. Although I have never gone to art school or had formal art classes, it has always been my obsession to portray the world through paint or pencil.

I have been drawn to the portrayal of wildlife in its most personal form, giving the observer a sense of closeness with the animals that I paint. In particular, creating a composition in which the eyes are the most prominent and detailed feature creates a sense of intimacy and realism that few people typically experience on a daily basis. Through the portrayal of wildlife and natural settings, I also hope to kindle in people a sense of beauty and wonder, as well as the need for preservation of these creatures and places, as encounters with endangered species like these may soon become a thing of the past.

I try to keep my work as realistic as possible, because that is where my abilities are stretched the most. The fine details of a piece may take weeks to complete, but the illusion of reality that this extra time allows is essential to the quality of the finished piece.

Most of my recent work has either been in oils, soft pastels, or colored pencil, although I use watercolors, gouache, scratchboard, and acrylics as well. I am continually surprised by the versatility of colored pencil, an undervalued medium, and its ability to create incredible detail in one's work. Colored pencil is also extremely time consuming due to the number of layers needed to create a finished work, and a small portrait might take weeks to finish. In oils, I practice the art of glazing, utilized so frequently by the old masters. This technique requires layer upon layer of paint to be added to each other, waiting a day or more for each layer to dry. While intensely time consuming, this technique gives paintings a luminescent quality, allowing light to pass through each layer in turn.

Recognition

Events and Gallery Shows