The Early Years

Artistic interest runs in my family.  I was drawing constantly as a child. After I was able to visit the few galleries and museums in my area, I decided on oil painting as my media. I bought a book titled " Painting Landscapes and Seascapes by Robert Wood", and it all began. I accomplished my first oil painting of a Laguna Beach seascape when I was 17 years old. In addition to art,  I have also always loved nature and the natural world.  I majored in  wildlife management in college with a minor in illustrating.  While still in college I was offered a position as a ranager in the National Park Service.  Having a lot of college debt, I took the well paying government  job with the idea of being able to paint in my free time.  The free time became less and less available as I worked up the government  food chain. I retired from a great career in the NPS as soon as I was eligible to receive my life-long annuity, which would allow me to finally pursue my ultimate life goal of being an fully dedicated artist. My last position with the NPS was at the Grand Canyon.  My wife and I moved to Cottonwood, AZ and I immediately immersed myself in the world of the artist. Sedona is a great small art town and it allowed me to immediately associate with other artists and take workshops from local successful painters.  It is now over twelve years later and I have traveled some distance on the journey, but I feel that I am not even close to whatever the final destination will look like.

My artistic journey

My Artistic Journey is inspired by my desire to share with fellow art lovers my personal journey of growth and development as an artist. I refer to my artistic growth as a journey because that's what it is, a journey with an unknown finite destination.  I know in general terms what I want to convey to the viewer of my art, but I don't know precisely what paths or steps I will take to better achieve my artist goals.  The journey is about the process of seeking continual improvement and satisfaction. Although other artists, particularly past masters, have influenced my style of painting, the overall "look" of my work has been developed over the 50 plus years since I painted my first seascape near laguna Beach, CA.

Except for taking two plein air workshops from very accomplished painters to refine my ability to paint more effectively on location, I'm a self taught artist.  Self taught is a loose term for it implies that everything that I know, and all of my skill was "discovered" without the help of others. This is not the case at all.  It just means that other than the one illustrating course in college, I was not  formally trained as an artist in an academic institution.  As my journey has progressed, I have visited countless art museums and galleries and have studied the paintings of past and current masters that convey to the viewer some of what is important to me. So I have spent a lot of time dissecting the work of others in order  to seek out how they achieved what is special about each of their great paintings.My work continues to be inspired and influenced by the art of current and past masters and books that they have written.