“As my artist statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible, and therefore full of deep significance.” Calvin & Hobbs
My mom said that I was an easy birth, even though I was born with a pencil in my left hand. I must have been 8 or 9 years old when I became conscience of my desire/ability to draw and create. I use the word “create” because at that young age, I must have felt a need to create something, anything and with whatever I had available, be it pencil or crayon to make small drawings. In junior high and being a young boy from the Detroit, Michigan area I would draw cars and re-design and modify plastic model car kits.
In high school, I had several drafting (mechanical drawing) classes. This was way before computer aided drawing (CAD), I found that drawing mechanically or free hand was a real fit. I also began to take my artistic drawing more seriously by taking drawing classes at night at the local community college. I was born to draw!!
Like so many things, life got in the way of the art. It was not until my mid-twenties, when I married my wonderful wife and entered the University did I again, find my love of art by way of design and architecture. Architecture gave me that drawing/ creative release.
At one point we lived in Cleveland, Ohio, and again I was taking night classes but, this time oil painting classes. This art program included a nighttime program at the Cleveland Museum of Art that allowed artists to be classified as a “Copiest”. As a Copiest you were able, during certain Museum evening hours, to set up easel and paints and stand immediately in front of a Masterpiece and copy the Masterpiece. Truly a privilege. I have made several reproductions of Edgar Degas and one of Albert Besnard and of Picasso.
I begin each painting by drawing the subject in detail with pencil or a brush with very thin gray paint before adding any color. This underpainting establishes the light, values and tone of the painting.
After 45 years in architecture, design and construction, I have retired and really begun to spend more time drawing and painting in earnest. For the larger paintings, I often build my own wooden frames and stretch the canvas. The subject matter for a painting is varied and pretty much whatever strikes my fancy. This year I plan to copy several of John Singer Sargent’s paintings and perhaps dabble in some abstract work.
