I love a good drawing. I’ve been drawing as long as I can remember and won my first drawing prize when I was in the 6th grade. Even though my professional career was in the Engineering and Computing fields I maintained an interest in art by attending monthly drawing sessions from live models throughout my working years. After my retirement in the late 1990s I took on art as a full time endeavor. I paint in Watercolor, Pastel, Acrylics and Oil but even in my paintings the underlying drawing is always evident. In the last half of the previous century drawing pretty much fell out of vogue. Many art schools even shunned drawing. Fortunately, I was off of the main track and kept up with drawing throughout my career. Today drawing from life is enjoying a new resurgence and I’m happily involved with several drawing groups.
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.
I love associating with artists. I’m very active in the local art community, particularly with the Eastside Association of Fine Arts, and have served as the president of that organization. I am also active with the Puget Sound Group of Northwest Painters (I was president in 2009), the American Portrait Society, the Northwest Watercolor Society, and the Northwest Pastel Society.
