After being in the business of painting murals and marble for several years, I’d struck up many friendships with fellow artists who did different things with their art, some commercial, some graphic, some gallery work. It was artists selling work out of galleries that were painting what they wanted, from the truest, deepest place in their heart, whether it sold or not. That was the level that I wanted to attain. Then I was given the opportunity to sell a body of work in a prestigious gallery in the Pearl District in Portland, OR. I painted a series of still lifes of simple objects, like red onions, gourds, a broken head of garlic. The paintings portrayed a realistic impressionistic style inspired by old European still lifes of the 1800‘s. The end result was a sellout show, which I named “Still” and the show was anything but still. I learned that when you paint from the heart, you never fail. One of the most important aspects of painting is
composition. To be able to paint is certainly an impressive skill,
but to be able to create composition is what makes a painting effective.
This is something I always instinctively knew. When painting murals,
I wouldn’t leave the job until the composition worked. Painting
murals forces you to get the composition right because if you don’t
capture the composition in a mural, the flow and naturalness will
never work. Creating composition in the restricted area of a painting
proved to be far less difficult than capturing composition in a
20 square-foot room. So when I started painting canvas, I found
that the mathematics of the composition were easily achievable,
I could focus on capturing things like light source, shadow, and
other technical aspects. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
