When you visit my gallery pages, you'll see that I have several different series of works, all focused primarily on landscape and still life. The natural world continues to inspire, amaze and challenge me to sort out order and pattern from what appears to be chaos. I started out drawing and painting representationally, and I still use this approach in the preliminary planning stages of any art I do. I consider this the best way to gather information about a subject, to explore it fully, and to take the time to assimilate it into my thinking. Once I have a sketch or a more complete value drawing, with details of particular parts if needed, and my notes on color, patterns, time of day, etc., then I have enough information to make whatever type of painting I feel the subject calls for, from realistic to semi-abstract.
Sometimes I like the illusion of three-dimensionality that painting representationally provides, and other times I want to emphasize that it's just paint on a FLAT piece of paper by creating more abstracted works emphasizing shape, color and texture. Working back and forth between different series satisfies my need to work in both deep and shallow space, and to focus on either the representational aspects of a scene or on its underlying organization/structure. Almost all of my paintings include patterning. Many contain representations of fabric. I learned to sew as a child, and I still love fabrics and their wonderful designs. My favorite painters and styles of art have all used pattern to some degree—Matisse, Rousseau, Klee, Native American, ancient Egyptian, Japanese textiles with their hand-cut stencil (katagami) designs, and others. I use pattern as a purely decorative element, to create rhythm/repetition, and in some cases to reinforce a narrative theme.
My approach to the watercolor painting process is also eclectic. Sometimes I use very traditional methods—wet-into-wet passages set off with hard-edged glazed on areas to pull out shapes. Or I may have a light pencil drawing and essentially fill in areas with flat washes of color. Other times, particularly in my mixed media works, it's anything goes. I may use watercolor pencils, metallic watercolors, permanent markers or inks, combine transparent and opaque water mediums, use collaged elements, stamps, stencils, paint on gessoed paper, or use anything else that helps create the idea I have in mind. Many of these techniques and working processes are further explained in short articles found in my Watercolor Learning Center.
In the early 90's I began using the computer as another drawing/painting/collage tool, and have produced a body of work I call digital paintings. These pieces are created using a stylus pen as my pencil/brush and a computer screen as my paper/canvas, and are printed on archival substrates (paper or canvas) using archival inks, either as unique giclée (one of a kind) pieces, or as giclée print editions. Some are mixed media pieces, where I paint on digital imagery with traditional art materials (watercolor, ink, etc.) I begin these digital works in the same way I do a traditionally painted work–with inspiration and a drawing which is either scanned from my sketchbook or drawn directly on my digitizing tablet with the stylus pen. Sometimes I use a photo or photos I have taken as the jumping off point. If a digital painting is unique (one of a kind), you'll find it in the originals section of my virtual gallery. If they are part of a print edition, they'll be in the prints section. One of the advantages of creating digital paintings is that they can be output on paper or stretched canvas, in a wide variety of sizes. Unique and limited edition prints are archived at a very small, low-resolution once sold to a collector. These unique images and my limited edition prints come with a certificate of authenticity.