WHY I PAINT: THE PROCESS OF CREATING

I started taking private art lessons when I was nine years old and I have never stopped painting since! Now, into my sixties and retired for over eight years, I not only have more time to paint but each day I love it more and more! One thing I realized a long time ago, I will never stop learning and improving my art skills! Each painting teaches me something. I force myself to try new things each time I start a painting.

To me painting is both a real rush but, at the same time, it can be nerve racking and a lot of work. Some times color and value selection come intuitively and sometimes I agonize over them. Each color chosen, each brush stroke is a decision that affects the outcome of the painting. At least with oils you can always paint over a poor decision!

I start a painting based on an idea and image that has come to me in my mind's eye or that has been sparked by seeing something either in nature, in a photo, a magazine, in someone elses painting...almost any where. As I paint the painting assumes a life of its own, many times deviating from my original mind's image. For some reason, most of my paintings end up with strong colors and strong contrasts...the cummulative result of all those little decisions! That has become "my style" or "trade mark". Many times I have tried to start in a different direction only to find the final result to be the same.

I have always been attracted to the water. I swam competitvely since I was six years old, through high school and college. I have always lived on or near the water including South America, Cape Cod, the New Jersey shore, and cruised througout the Mediterranean, Irish, North, Norwegian and Baltic Seas. Currently, my homes in Charleston and Salem, South Carolina expose me to beautiful ocean, marsh, creek and lake scenes and all that lives and grows around them! These scenes offer me unlimited inspiration and painting material. My only regret is that I will not live long enough to capture on canvas all the painting opportunities that this beautiful scenery has to offer. 

I hope my paintings inspire the viewer and make them feel as I did when I first put brush to canvas to try and capture nature's beauty.