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Art Background:
I always loved to paint, painting of any kind. When I was little, my
grandfather and I painted fences, boxes and anything else we could find
that "needed a good coat of paint." One year while I was going to
college, I painted houses on weekends. When I had little kids, and my
only available paints were house paints, I painted pictures with house
paints on boards.
My parents, grandparents and great-grandparents periodically painted
pictures, and my mom painted steadily, so it was easy for me to follow
along. I studied painting a little in college, but I didn't get serious
about painting regularly until 1987 after taking workshops from Bill Kucha
and Doug Haga on the Oregon coast. My mom and I paint together whenever
we can, and enjoy critiquing each others' work over a glass of wine. I
started putting out a lot more quantity of paintings after courses from
Arne Westerman in Portland, Oregon in 1998, and Steve Memering in
Carmichael, California in 2000.
Principles:
My objective is to produce picture poems or stories, not
decorations. I want to get the viewer to travel around the painting and
get interested in patterns of shapes, colors and textures.
People tend to make scenes interesting, evoking stories, so I put people
in many of my paintings. I love trying to capture a human gesture,
especially when it takes just the right line to do it, and especially when
expressive hands and faces are involved.
I love the ocean -- I like to paint seascapes with different looks than
you usually see, trying to get the viewer involved with the many textures
of water.
And I paint a lot of gardens, trying to encourage the viewer to wander
through an extended garden and enjoy the patterns of plants, rocks and
paths.
Personal Background:
After thirty plus years in the San Francisco Bay Area, working primarily
in financial and software businesses, my wife and I moved to the Mendocino
coast of Northern California in September 2000 where I am now very happy
that I can paint and draw full time.
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