My still life and plein air oil and watercolor paintings are born from a need to develop as an artist. I choose to paint, rather than photograph, because while a photograph can do a good job of preserving a specific image and time, it can’t select for the most important details in a subject. In addition, it doesn’t allow for the time, careful scrutiny, and intention it takes to make a painting. I’ve heard love described as: “paying careful attention to.” If this is the case, when I practice painting, I am practicing love.
My work focuses on the essence of what makes my everyday subjects beautiful. I try to create an impression of light and form, simplifying shapes and distilling the subject down to its most important parts. I have a long way to go at perfecting this technique and that’s part of the fun. My practice is something I plan to pursue throughout my entire life because I believe there will always be room to grow.
Each painting was created in a single session, usually between 2 or 3 hours long. I painted the still lifes in my apartment while listening to music or podcasts, typically in my kitchen. The landscapes were painted on-site, plein air. It’s important to me that I paint what my eyes see, so they were all painted directly from life, not from a picture.
When I see them, these paintings make me hopeful that it’s worth the effort to try again and again, that daily, sustainable, practice yields the most powerful results, and that practicing for a lifetime is the only way to know just how good I can get.
