According to the artist, "I am a Colorado native and have been motivated primarily by the beauty and grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, western desert and the Pacific Coast.
I have a bachelor’s of arts degree from Colorado Christian University in Lakewood, and completed a three-year program in commercial art at Famous Artist School in Westport, Conn. I also took several college-level art classes at the Denver Center of the University of Colorado and Colorado Mountain College. I have also attended workshops in watercolor and pastels with Tom Lynch and Maggie Price.
Exhibitions in which I have participated include Montrose Art League Fall Festival, Hotchkiss Fine Art Association, Glenwood Springs Art Guild’s Fall Art Festival, Black Canyon Art Exhibit, Garfield County Art Fair, Aspen Fine Art Gallery, and the Delta Fine Arts Exhibition. Galleries where my work is or has been displayed include Artists’ Mercantile in Glenwood Springs and Lake City Gift Shop in Lake City, Villalobos Gallery in Marble and Black Mountain in Oak Creek. Also included in my show experiences is a one-man show at the Village Smithy in Carbondale during May and June of 2001 and 2005. Awards received include first- and second-place awards at the Garfield County Fair, second place and Purchase Patron awards in the professional division at the Glenwood Springs Fall Art Festival, second place in the Montrose Visual Arts Exhibition and Excellence Award at the Colorado State University Industrial Arts Fair.
Wife of 43 years, Carol, and three grown children ” two daughters and one son
I always liked to doodle as a kid and it grew from there. I took commercial art classes for three years, but I didn’t really enjoy commercial art. I’m a licensed architect in Colorado. I do art for fun ” I’m an architect for a living.
Besides painting, I like fishing, camping and photography.
My preferred mediums are watercolor and pastels. As an architect, my graphic work is always tight, detailed and technically exact. I take an impressionistic approach to painting influenced by artists such as Tom Lynch, Tony Coach, Roland Roycraft, Robert Wade and Stephen Quiller. Using a more free, spontaneous medium has provided me with a more subjective and expressive response to those unique places and experiences.
Tom Lynch. He did a series of watercolor demos and I ordered a couple of his books. He’s probably one of my strongest influences ” he’s as good a teacher as an artist. I also studied under Tom Lynch at an expo in Sante Fe.
Landscapes are my preferred subject as a celebration of creation. The moods, beauty and uniqueness of the natural landscape have always been a fascination for me. Unique places are the primary influences of my work. What is unique always varies. Sometimes it is a picturesque place. Sometimes it’s a feeling created by light or weather which evokes a response. My focus is to play up the uniqueness of my subject by emphasizing the lighting, color and center of interest rather than literal accuracy. My work, while portraying recognizable objects or places, is never photographic. I see the work of an artists as a matter of self-expression, and therefore, a translation of the subject to a two-dimensional format for the purpose of communication, self-expression and entertainment. As a painter, I have sought to capture the mood and essence of a place. Because of that goal my art tends more toward impressionism."