I love a good line. The capture of a look, a gesture or an emotion with the simplicity of a clean line is almost magical to me. I’ve always admired the great artists from antiquity to modern times who, with a few pencil strokes, can evoke feelings of passion, excitement, humor, grace and elegance in the mind of the viewer. A simple line from a master artist can be as powerful as a great sentence from a gifted writer.

I love dimension. Line can be thought of as the first dimension; it has length but no width or height. In a painting, the second dimension is represented by anything that emphasizes the flat surface, including flat tone, writing on the surface, texture, splatter, abstract patterns or other such effects. Against this background of 1 and 2 dimensions might emerge a fully 3 dimensional subject with tone, shadow and other techniques that make the image seem to pop out from the flat surface.

I love tonal value. Some artists are passionate about color and are able to evoke emotion just from skillful blending of colors on the surface. But I am much more excited by rich patterns of dark and light in a drawing and a full range of shades in between.

I love people. I enjoy doing portrait commissions, figure drawing, people working, people in interesting situations, people displaying emotions (joy – sadness – anger – whatever). At least nine out of ten of my paintings involve people doing things.