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Born and raised in California, I was first introduced to fine art painting in Chicago. My parents took me to The Art Institute for my eleventh birthday where I saw an exhibit of the British masters Constable, Turner, and Hogarth. From that time on I drew everything I saw - my parents, my dogs, neighborhood houses, everything. I took all the art courses offered in high school and college, and was tempted to try for a career in fine art. However, I didn't know what such a career looked like, nor how to approach it. Instead I chose a career in medicine and surgery.
My love for painting never left me, and I returned to it via a Ted Goershner painting workshop in 1987. Subsequent workshops with Ray Vinella, Ovanes Berbarian, Jim Wilcox, Scott Christensen, and Frank LaLumia have helped hone my painting skills. The work of Nicolai Fechin, Richard Schmid, and Edgar Payne have inspired and challenged me.
Since retirement from General Surgery to the four corners region, plein air painting has absorbed most of my time. The changing seasons and the varied terrain make this part of God's creation a landscape painter's paradise. Plein air painting (landscape painting on location) is so much more rewarding than painting from photos. The subject is there before you, with all its varied patterns, harmonious colors, and delightful sounds and smells. But nature does "impose tasks when she presents opportunities", such as when my easel is blown down by a gust of wind, or when my oil paints are submerged on my tray palette by freezing rain.
I paint mainly for myself to remember what I see. If and when I am satisfied with a painting - nothing in it which offends its harmony, nothing to add or subtract - the painting is finished. If this occurs at the painting site - great! If it happens back in my studio as I remember things at my leisure - great! As Constable said, "I imagine myself driving a nail; I have driven it some way and by persevering, I may drive it home---" I find that to craft a painting with which I am satisfied, I need three things: a worthy motif, knowledge of what I'm about, and persistence.
Browse our complete catalog by this artist. Pieces are ordered by the year of the item's production.
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