my first watercolor
While learning to paint in art school, the craft and skills we were learning were often used to portray simple subject matter and/or and studio junk. As such, there are few paintings worthy of showing from that time. There were a couple that had some merit, however. A few of those that dealt with the human figure or products of the imagination were successful enough to keep.
Art school was often a love/hate experience, due to the lack of visual subject matter, and rudimentary life experiences to use as inspiration. Instead, while I spent those years pontificating philosophy and science, my art teachers were covering the basics of negative space, contour drawing, line, light and color theory. Luckily, I was able to absorb some of the lessons. Through the years, I have been fortunate to apply much of what I learned to illustrations, animation and design. If I could go back to art school, I’d do so in a ‘New York Minute’.
These days, and for the past few years, my paintings have been of mostly personal subject matter. Family has been front and center, and many of my paintings reflect that fact. For a few years, while my dad had horses, I was able to study and visualize a few paintings of them. Other themes in my works are from traveling. I have painted a number of churches and statuary. I work mostly in acrylic these days, as my children do not mix well with canvases that need time to dry. Although I have dabbled with watercolors from time to time.
