Living in the Mid-South since my college days has given me a deep appreciation for the natural beauty of this area, with the golds, reds, and chestnut browns of fall and the enormous variety of colors in the spring and summer. It is such a wonderful privelege to live in an extremely beautiful location and to have so much to paint. Naturally, this extraordinary landscape has been a primary focus for my artwork. Even though I have enjoyed painting the landscape and occasionally still life or floral, recently I have stretched my painting repertoire a little bit by painting some abstracts.

When I’m planning a painting I start with thinking about a design. The design of a painting is the skeleton that supports everything else going on in a painting. If my design is successful, the harmony of colors, shapes, lines and contrasts pull the painting together. Working to create a design that will draw the viewer into the painting and then keep the viewer coming back for another look is very important. To try and achieve that goal in my paintings, I often develop the design first on paper with pastels or pencils. If I have a very good idea in my mind of what I want a painting to look like, I’ll go directly to the canvas and paint. And just for a break and to get a fresh point of view, I’ll sometimes paint intuitively, but still keeping the overall design working as a primary goal. My ideas and subjects are painted from life, photographs, and imagination.

I paint in both oil and acrylic, but probably paint with acrylic a little more often than oil. I like the way acrylic dries quickly and all of the different gels, mediums and wide variety of colors available in acrylics. My paintings almost always have quite a bit of texture and it’s easy to get that texture with acrylics. And acrylics are so versatile that it makes experimenting and learning new techniques a lot of fun! Oil on the other hand, is a traditional media and also what I first used to paint. So when I paint with oil, it’s like returning to an old friend who is a part of many fond memories.
As an artist, I believe it’s important for me to continually explore and study painting in order to improve. No matter what level of skill and understanding of painting I achieve, I will always be a student of art.