Artisans' Guild Gallery

Painting, for me, is a way of combining the art of observation with the craft of manipulating tools and materials. I’m interested in the way  the visible world  is shaped by light and shadow, the effects of atmosphere on the light, and the way reflections describe the surface of water.  I like to use techniques such as wet in wet and layering that allow me to evoke the low light of dawns, the quiet solitude of foggy days and the texture of everything from trees to clouds to water.  The mood and atmosphere are more important to me than trying to depict a particular place. The woods, the beach, and any body of water and it’s surroundings are subjects that  fascinate me as they have all the ingredients for expressive paintings.
       

Working in series allows me to explore different aspects of a scene. Multiple versions of the same image or different views of the same scene are interesting ways to explore a subject. One scene can be the source of many compositions.  I started getting serious about painting in 1998 when I began attending an oil painting open studio with Eleanor Blair.  I gravitated to watercolors from oils mostly as a way to do color sketching but found I liked the way  water and paper and color interact.