VL Studio Vist with Marzena Oberc-Habzda

I was borne in Poland, where I lived in historic city of Krakow. My favorite activity as a child were, drawing, painting or creating figures from clay. I always could be found at my desk consumed by my latest art project. I participated in various art competitions, winning various awards.
My grammar school teacher encouraged me to focus on art as a future career. During high school at Liceum Plastyczne , I studied drawing, painting, sculpture and restoration of historic wall frescoes.
Toward the end of high school I have moved with my family to U.S.  After graduation I attended Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, for continuing education.
I also attended Pair Collage of Art in Hamden, Connecticut. There I studied Graphic Design.
I am captivated, inspired and challenged by various subjects in nature.  My main focus is on nature’s delicate yet powerful beauty, remarkable design and perfect color harmony. I am driven by a need to explore and capture a certain sense of light to evoke desired emotion and inner feeling not easily captured and expressed in words.
I am fascinated with perfect unity, relationship of shapes and harmony of color that nature delivers with such ease and perfection. This creates constant excitement, drive and spontaneous approach to the subject. Inspiration for every painting comes from seeing and experiencing something beautiful, something so captivating that it takes my breath away.
I love painting with acrylics! For health reasons, a while ago, I had to switch from oils to acrylics.
Once I discovered Golden Open Acrylics I never looked back. They offer slower drying time, therefore an ability to be manipulated with ease in order to create oil like appearance. My painting technique does not require  blending of colors, therefore transition from oils was rather quick and easy. I paint with small tiles for color gradually banding them to a desired value, warm or
 cool temperature, manipulating edges and texture to create a desired effect with ease. Because of their quick drying time, acrylics offer instant visual gratification and result. I am representational artist, therefore my painting style requires a specific canvas texture in order to maintain certain control and manipulate the paint to accomplish the desired effect. My favorite painting surface is the Cleassens #13, oil primed , fine weave  linen panel by Sourrce Tek.
Love the gliding ability of Golden Open Acrylics on panel surface. Acrylics allow me to paint faster with very satisfying results. Colors are brilliant, pure and easy to mix and manipulate . The felling I am trying to convey is accomplished in a quick and satisfying manner. I tend to favor cool colors; i.e; blues, purples. My very favorite color now is Naples Yellow.  There are many incredible artists that I admire as most of us do. However there are two artists of the past that made a very strong impression on me when I was still a young child. First one is wonderful Russian painter of late  1800 Ivan Shishkin and the other Franz A. Bischoff. There are so many wonderful artists today that I love and greatly admire, like Richard Schmid, David A. Leffel, Morgan Waistling, Huihan Liu,  Dan Gerhartz, Quang Ho, Sherrie Mc Graw, Karthryn Stats, Jeffery Watts and Scott Tallman Powers just to name a few. I am very gatefull to all of them for there willing to share their knowledge and experiences with the rest of us, therefore helping us become better artists and bystep some of the common mistakes and learning arrors.

VL Featured Artist Dawn Waters Baker

Dawn feels like her first language was beauty. That was how her heart was stirred to art. Born and raised a missionary kid she learned to look for it in the cracks and crevices of lives much harder then her own. In college, she learned how to find her own way to express her heart through painting. Dawn’s husband is a gentle gift who likes quiet as much as she does. They have three kids and with them the quiet left. It birthed a joy found in working on what's important and striving for love in all things.


She likes to think of her work as a “glimpse of the mystery.”  The metaphors of life held in branches, cloud wisps and water.  There is something that compels Dawn to paint, not what is literally seen but what is felt.  For her, the window into the spiritual is nature. It seems to be the image that she is invited to pass through into something much richer and deeper and full of beauty.

Her art is collected by many businesses as well as private owners.  Some of which are: Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas Eye Care Associates, Dallas Baptist University, She currently finished five original drawings for the book, “Why, O God?” published by Crossway books.  She is a member of Artists of Texas. Dawn is affiliated with Mary Tomas Gallery in Dallas Design District, Smith Klein Gallery in Boulder, Colorado and currently with the summer group exhibit at White Stone Gallery in Philadelphia, PA.  Her work has been in National shows including The National Weather Biennale, CIVA Contemporary Images of Mary and Ex Nihilo at Roberts Wesleyan College.  Her work is available internationally through Veritasse based in London, England.

Artspan Artist Spotlight with Jean Howard

When did you realize you loved art and wanted to be an artist?
I don't remember exactly when I first wanted to be an artist. 

Who has been your mentor, or greatest influence to date?
My father was an architect and did some watercolor renderings of his projects.  I think that I always drawing.  When I was 13 he gave me some art books and about that time I knew that I wanted to be an artist. He was my greatest mentor.
Who is another living artist you admire and why?
The artists that I admire are Richard Diebenkorn and Hans Halls. I know that they are dead but I am not influenced as much by today's artists.


What is your favorite surface to create work on or to work with? Describe it if you make it yourself.
I like to work on handmade watercolor paper when I do watercolors and canvas for oils.

 Do you have a favorite color palette?
Not a favorite color palette.
 

How often do you work on your artwork? How many hours a week?   

I work in chunks, solid for awhile and then NOT for awhile.

What are your inspirations for your work?  

I am inspired by things that I see, sometimes unexpectedly.

 What is your favorite color in your closet? 

I don't have a favorite color.  I thought about this question a lot. I am more interested in a relationship between colors. My closet reflects this also.

What book are you reading this week? 

I am reading "behind the beautiful forevers" by Katherine Boo.

What is your favorite food? 

I love lobster.

What color sheets are on your bed right now? 

My sheets are beige.

Do you have a passion or hobby other than painting? What is it? 

My other interests include gardening and duplicate bridge.

Who would you love to paint? 

I love to paint the Ocean.


If you were an animal what would you be and why?      

I would like to be a seagull to fly around the banks of the ocean.

Share something with us that few people know about you.  

I am a very private person.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?  

I would love to live in Laguna Beach.

VL Studio Visit with William Beebe

Art has always been in my blood, but I took a circuitous route in becoming a full-time professional artist.   In my junior year of college I signed up for a portrait painting class hoping to improve my GPA.  Up until then my life had been all about sports.  I had always been a doodler though, drawing in pencil and seeing the world in black and white.  The thought of being an artist never crossed my mind until I discovered the world of oil painting.  My portrait-painting teacher that semester greatly encouraged me and the seed was planted!

After graduating from the University of Maryland with a Studio/Fine Art degree the pragmatic side of me took over.  I was 23 years old, newly married and living in the suburbs of Washington, DC.  I couldn’t find a job in art because I didn’t study graphic arts.  I found myself working as a bookkeeper and then back at the U. of MD for my second degree in Accounting.  Then I spent a year in tax accounting followed by several years as an accountant in private industry.  I never felt like it was my destiny.

In the meantime, my father died suddenly from cancer as my mother was fighting her own long battle with cancer.  My father was the one who had told me to do what makes me happy.  My mother was the one who took me to art galleries and saved my drawings.  They were giving me the gift of developing a life compass.  I was now at a crossroads and that inner compass was pointing me in a new direction. 

My wife, Jen, and I decided to take a much-needed vacation to Maine and it was there that I became inspired to paint!  I came home from that special trip and painted a schooner docked in Boothbay Harbor.  I started painting more, dreaming of living in Maine and painting as a vocation.  Before long we decided to take a leap of faith.

Now I find myself looking back on 24 years of being a full-time artist.  I appreciate every day of “going to work” and am extremely grateful to have been able to pursue my passion of painting for a living. 

The Maine paintings I produced early on ranged from lighthouses, to working waterman scenes, to the small coastal fishing villages and islands.  My work attracted the attention of Mr. Charles Cawley, an avid art collector and the CEO of MBNA, an international credit card company.  He started collecting my work and eventually hired me to become the resident artist for MBNA!

For nine wonderful years I had the honor of having my paintings featured on the cover of MBNA’s quarterly reports.  Along with paintings of their many office buildings around the world, they encouraged me to continue painting Maine scenes for their collection.

Over time I became more narrowly focused on capturing the beauty of the Maine Windjammer fleet.  Hundreds of schooners used to work the Maine waters, hauling lumber and limestone.  I was intrigued by how few of them are left and saddened by the thought that someday they will be gone.  Each ship has a long history, some dating over one hundred years!

Many hours of painting in the smallest of details were spent on each ship.  I wanted to pay tribute to each ship by recording an accurate interpretation of it on canvas to hopefully last for another hundred years.

My maritime paintings have been exhibited in numerous gallery and museum shows throughout the years including the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, ME and at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay, OR, where I won a Merit award in the 12th Annual Maritime Art Exhibition.  Additionally my work has been a part of several Marine Masters Exhibitions in Mystic, CT and Thomaston, ME and the 26th Annual International Marine Art Exhibition at the Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport.


When we moved to Virginia in 2002, I was a little concerned that I might have trouble finding that same passion for painting that I found in Maine.

Then one day I heard that the state of Virginia had built a replica of an historic wooden pilot schooner named Schooner Virginia.  After doing a little research I found out that it was going to be docked in Portsmouth, VA.  When I walked up the dock and saw the Virginia for the first time I was taken aback.  The tall ship with its beautiful black shiny hull and gold engraved letters on the bow spelling VIRGINIA had grandeur to it. I took hundreds of detail pictures that day in Portsmouth.

I had found new inspiration and immediately started planning a series of paintings featuring the Schooner Virginia.

Every year there is a Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race that begins in Annapolis, MD at the Bay Bridge and continues on down the Bay.  I witnessed and photographed the Virginia and the Pride of Baltimore II in a nose-to-nose race under ideal sailing conditions.  It was a powerful moment for me.

During that race I also photographed the Pride of Baltimore II, the Lettie G. Howard out of New York, and other smaller schooners, which sail the waters of the Chesapeake.

My first painting of the Virginia was a large commissioned piece featuring the tall ship cutting through the dark water with speed and grace.  I was honored when approached by the folks at the Schooner Virginia to have reproduction giclee prints made from this painting to help with their annual fundraiser.  We worked closely with the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, VA to produce these quality prints. 

Subsequently, I completed four more Schooner Virginia paintings in competitive races with sister ships to complete my series.

I’ve discovered that like art, a need to be near the water is in my blood.  Being able to combine the two callings as a maritime artist has turned out to be a dream come true! 

Birgit Huttemann-Holz Studio Visit with Visual Language Magazine

Birgit Huttemann-Holz               

Detroit- Inside the Pioneer Building, studio 303, February 2014

It is still frigid outside, a city frozen almost solid. I open the door to my sanctuary, turn on the light, plug in my electric tools, and turn on the heater.

I connect my IPod, listen a moment to myself, select the music and turn up the volume. Ready! I step into the U-form of my working space. It surrounds me and allows me to concentrate on my art, not finding things.  On the right are my paint griddle and electric skillets, my pigments and waxy brushes.

On my left are oil paints, oil sticks, oil pastels, and brushes with a blue tape on their handle. The blue tape reminds me to not dip them in wax! For now, directly in front of me, is a large architectural drawing table placed horizontally position. About 5 meters behind me stands a large mirror. I only have to turn around to get a distant glance of my painting so that I can view and critique my work.  One, no, two more things - I coat my hands with barrier cream and fasten the apron behind my back. Maybe that is my daily routine. Every other move is dictated by my soul, and my dreams. I am talking about my work - it’s a love affair!

Today, I went downtown before coming to the studio and bought some cobalt blue oil paint. I can’t wait to get my hands into that startling deep blue. Yes, “Mother Nature is my competition!” I start with clear encaustic layers on my wooden panel.  I torch, scrape away the excess wax with my razorblades and start anew. After two layers I add some pigments to my wax. Layer after layer I build the foundation, then the background, it is now that I and set the temperament of the painting. 

Then I start with the outlines and followed by shadows. Today, it is black, straight from the tube, oil, glistening, as thick as my pinky, a bit of linseed oil, pouring, generous and then brush work: Bold, playful, but with many exclamation marks!! It’s a dance that only just begins. I turn and add wax again, burnt umber on top. And so it goes back and forth. In between, I fuse everything with my Iwatani torch, a furious little thing. I do not use propane. I use butane, a very hot merciless flame, a flame for the impatient, impetuous dare devil. Firedrake!

Now, the detail - cobalt blue of course! I push the oily paint directly on my fingertips - sometimes, I am wearing gloves, but not today! It is a sensory overload. I  flick the paint, smear, set accents, wipe , mix, add wax , torch it, burn in, let it pool, scrape away, cover, reveal.

It is my ‘Fascinosum’. And the best of all? Gestural painting! Movement, storm, impact, sweeping, bulging, ripping apart, prying open, with a high arc flying  across the plane.

Mighty paintings – ‘Sturm und Drang’ (storm and stress) - they plea: Be careful! At the same time they wave you over and whisper: Come join! Be unrestrained!

An abstract landscape. Cross-border breed, lyrical, upside down. Scratched, incised agitation, reflection, fly-fishing for urgrunds (primal cause or ultimate cosmic principle).

Rising water. A falling flower bud will slay you! Beauty and abyss! Excessive curiosity, spellbound, trance.

Birgit Huttemann-Holz     

www.brightstroke.com                 

Corey West Watson Featured Visual Language Artist Studio Visit

Corey West Watson

"Searching For Someday"

The Layered World Of Corey West Watson

   by Dave Justus

 “It sounds so clichéd to say that I was practically born with a brush in my hand, but it’s the truth,” says Corey West Watson. Throughout a childhood spent drawing and painting, Watson knew she wanted to be an artist. But she had little idea what such a calling would entail, or how the journey would test her to her limits.

    “I thought being an artist was little more than creating pretty pictures to hang on people’s walls. I had no idea the depth of love I would experience… along with painful loss, and the struggle of having to forgive incredible violations.” Watson’s experiences from the playroom drawings of her youth to the studio paintings of today gave her, she now realizes, “the drive to take my art beyond just ‘pretty,’ and into a place where I would have to pour out my soul.”

    That soul finds its expression on her canvases, in their abstract washes of color or their layers of mixed media. The processes she has developed—the “how” and “why” of her creative expression—find their genesis in her past, in a story that Watson never imagined she would be sharing with the world at large. But as interest in her artwork grows, so too does interest in the woman behind the signature, and so she has drawn back the curtain to offer a glimpse.

   “There were many people who influenced me as a person,” she says, “but none more than Ben. He became my greatest love, and my deepest pain.” The two met at a young age and very quickly fell in love. It felt natural for them to talk about their “someday”—a life, a family, a home together. But that home couldn’t stand in the face of the Other Woman who “roared through my life like a tornado.” Watson watched helplessly as her relationship began to crumble. “She was a young woman without moral boundaries, who didn’t care that he was not available. He was a young man full of hormones, fear, and the belief that it was not possible to find the love of one’s life at 18.” Devastated, Watson removed herself from the situation, salvaging what pride she could and moving out of town, abandoning her happy “someday” in her wake.

    “The emotional overflow I was experiencing had nowhere to go except onto my canvas,” she recalls. “It felt natural for me to release it there, since drawing and painting were part of who I was anyway.” But even as she took up her brush, she confronted a daunting realization: For the work to be real, the emotion that went into it had to be genuine. “I was a shy person,” Watson admits. “So while I needed the emotional release my art gave me, the thought of people seeing my heart and soul poured out onto a piece of paper terrified me.”

    But her pain was too raw to keep bottled… so instead, she abstracted it. Within a few years, her work was practically nonobjective. “I was in love with creating abstract paintings not only for the challenge it presented, but I felt like it would give me a way to hide behind my work while secretly pouring out my heart.” The more she bled onto the canvas, though, the more people began to respond to her art, until she had almost literally painted herself into a corner. “The more abstract my work became, the more people asked questions. The more I had to talk about my work. And the more I realized that it was the story behind the art that connected them to my art, and me to them.”

    That story was far from finished. A few years down the line, Watson felt her heart breaking all over again when she learned that Ben was getting married… to the Other Woman. Emotions she had buried in her work came surging to the surface, and she realized that the only way to cope with the news was to let him go, to move on with her own life. She got married as well, and though some small part of her still loved Ben and thought of him daily, she knew it was improper to dwell on those thoughts. “Marriage meant I had to keep him where he belonged in my life, which was in the past. I allowed myself a brief time to reflect on what he was to me… and again, I went to my art.”

Watson wanted to honor what Ben had meant to her, the enormous influence he had been on her life and her work, but she wasn’t quite certain how to do so. Then she remembered that she had collected an assortment of handmade papers back in college, for reasons that had never been entirely clear to her. Their purpose crystalized in an instant. “I began to tear and cut the papers,” she says, “and put them into acrylic paintings along with other material like ink, pastel, spray paint, and fabric. My thinking was that the different materials represented all the life experiences that I had had,” and that their inclusion in her art was a way to commemorate the influence not only of Ben, but of many of the people who had shaped her life’s course.

“One day, and quite by accident, I began to cover a painting I had been working on that I did not like. I found that parts of it were nice when they were allowed to just peek through.” Watson sat fixated on the painting for a week, considering what to do with it next. Over that time, it took on a much larger, more symbolic meaning for her. She thought about people as a whole, “how we all start life as a canvas ready to be filled. That canvas is built on in layer after layer, developing who we are. Each layer influences the next, some areas showing through and others we choose to cover up and make go away.”

This idea was so meaningful to her that she began to adopt the mixed media layering process for all of her paintings, creating colorful palimpsests that came alive in the present but offered glimpses of the past. “All the work I do, even though it is mostly nonobjective, is life based in the sense that the materials and the process I developed all came from life stories,” Watson says of her methods. “I never have a specific plan when I begin a painting. I rely on happy accidents, the element of surprise.” Still, she adheres to her axiom that only genuine emotion can produce genuine art: “I work toward the goal of having a good painting that is true to who I am, and let it happen as it wants to. I place a layer on the canvas without specific intention to cover it, and when it’s ready for another layer, I add it. I keep covering, adding, and covering layers until the painting has had enough ‘experiences’ to feel complete.”

   Watson had developed her new art style as a way to help her process and compartmentalize her feelings for her lost love. “In a way, it allowed me to move forward, but in another, to keep him with me in a way that was not a threat to the life I chose.” But that life was not finished adding its layers; her experiences were far from complete.

   

  “Eventually,” she explains, “both our marriages ended in divorce. With broken families and broken hearts, we found our way back to each other.” Mixed in with her joy at seeing him again, she felt herself flooded with additional, unexpected emotions. To her chagrin, Watson learned that Ben had married “because he thought he blew it with me, and nobody he asked was willing to tell him how to find me.” Hearing that he had loved and missed her during their many years apart, she felt a rush of anger: “I was hurt and jealous that he had chosen to have a life, home, and family with her. Even though I had also moved on and had a family of my own, it made me feel guilty at how upset I was that he had a family that was not part of me. Part of us.”

    But there was a grander layer to be painted on top of this swirl of emotions. Eventually, Watson says, “I realized that through it all, God was answering my prayers the whole time.” Those answers had not always come easily, but there was no doubt she had received them. “I asked the Lord to make me an artist,” she explains, “not just to make me a good painter. He used Ben as an instrument in my life to create in me that which could not have existed without the intense life experiences I had.”

Her faith has given her a stability when she thought she might crumble, and she is grateful for God’s influence on her life and work. “He is the only one solid and secure enough to take our pain and carry us through it. He gives us outlets to release our pain and share our joy. He has given me life experience to make me more understanding as a wife, mom, friend, and daughter, as well as the understanding to use what I go through as a tool to become a better artist.” 

At this point in her story, Watson says, “I am over-the-moon excited that it came around full circle and that Ben and I are now married. I love knowing that what we had was real enough to bring us back together after fifteen years apart. I am blessed because of the second chance we’ve been given, and I look forward to what our future holds.” Though she acknowledges that the path they walked to reach this point hasn’t always been pretty, she is certain that, through its highs and lows, “it has created a bond between us, and a drive to be successful together.”

Of her husband, Watson muses, “I can honestly say that he is the one person who gave me the gift of becoming the artist I am, more than anyone else in my life. To this day I am not sure he knows how much he blessed my life.” It’s clear that the pain of his absence was as much an influence on her art as the joy of their reunion, and the love between them that never died.

Thinking back to that youth with the brush in her hand, Watson is circumspect in her reflections. “As a child, had I known what I would go through that would make me the artist I was praying to be, I would have run as fast as I could the other way. As an adult, having lived through all I have and seeing the blessings it brought me in all areas of my life—not just as an artist—I would live it all over again.”

It may have taken years, a great deal of pain, a multitude of layers… but Corey West Watson finally reached her “someday.” And the experience has prepared her to make the most of 

every day after.

Corey West Watson  

http://www.coreywest.artspan.com/

Studio Visit Visual Language with Texas Artist Pat Meyer

It seems that most women dedicating their lives nurturing and taking care of others. While Husbands, Children and Loved ones are the most important part of my life their comes a time when you move from the back burner to the front and that is what happen with my art several years ago. After retiring as a Senior VP of a large corporation and serving on the Board of Directors it was my time to explore another part of myself with my true feelings and desires. My passion is creating beautiful things that others would also enjoy viewing. 

When viewing the world around me I see great beauty that God provides in every turn and for one moment in time I would like to translate what I see into an expression of my feelings toward their own beauty. This seems so difficult at times since how can you improve on the natural beauty that already exist in each flower, landscape or person. This is the great challenge and enjoyment of art for me delighting in the learning experience each time I pick up my brush. !

Many days and nights are spent evaluating and learning how to express myself through art. The pure joy of being so lost in the painting that you are creating you do not even realize what time it is. That complete emersion of the subject is so thrilling that you want your excitement about the subject to come through on the canvas!

The simple beauty of flower can make you stop and take pause for just that instant knowing that enjoyment is all around if we take time to look for it. Now to continue that instant and hold on to it on the canvas for a lifetime what better gift can you give. 

During this journey of art I have met the most amazing artist and now friends that have helped mentor me. Judy Crowe gave of herself in my learning experience along with Qiang Haung, Robert Johnson, Scott Burdick, Daniel Keys and John Budicin. These great artist and their love of art have greatly influenced my personal style of painting. My goals from here are to continue to

grow with each brush stroke, to achieve an even higher level of expression and add even more professionalism by studying and painting daily. 

My hope for you is as you look deep into the heart of each of my paintings that you will discover they are not just beautiful pieces of art but that each piece conveys it’s own special message of hope, love and endurance. Carrying a message from God of peace, joy and beauty that he has blessed our lives!

In closing May I say thank you all for your support, love and generosity that you have shown to me and my artist journey.

http://www.patmeyer-artist.com/

David Yapp, Studio Visit out of Doors with Visual Language Magazine

A Painter’s Journey

David Yapp reflects on his path to plein air painting

Cutting through the chalk downland of Salisbury plain, in the southern English county of Wiltshire, is the gently flowing River Avon. The river runs south from its source in Pewsey Vale, through the medieval city of Salisbury, to the sea at Christchurch. It was along this river that I grew up on a small farm on the edge of a village not many miles from the ancient monument of Stonehenge.

The Wiltshire landscape is one of Neolithic burial sites, windswept hawthorn encrusted plains and chalk stream valleys, strewn with villages dating back to pre-Norman times. And above all this is the sweeping drama of the constantly changing sky.

The landscape and towns of the county are rich in history and have fed the artistic hearts and minds of many writers and artists. The penultimate scene of Thomas Hardy’s novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, is set at Stonehenge, and his fictitious city of Melchester, featured in Jude the Obscure, is based on the city of Salisbury. Artists Sir John Constable and J. M. W. Turner found a source for creative expression in the gothic splendor of Salisbury Cathedral and in the rugged forms of Stonehenge.

Like the River Avon, my own creative path has been a meandering one. Growing up on a farm, I spent much of my youth exploring and observing nature along the banks of the Avon and throughout the surrounding countryside. Paint and brush gave me a vehicle to portray the beauty I saw around me.

My interest in observing nature developed during my teens. A family friend who was studying zoology shared with me his fascination of entomology (the study of insects). We searched the water meadows, for exotic-looking beetles and metallic clad dragonflies. At night we set up a light trap to see what nocturnal winged beings we could discover. I started to paint some of these finds in watercolor, along with the flora they inhabited.

In the following years, at the local college, I made another connection to the animal kingdom. The biology professor, Patrick James, was an eccentric and interesting chap who had majored in zoology. He spent much of the lecture time talking about his fieldwork—time spent diving, and dodging sharks in the Caribbean. I had planned on working towards a zoology degree, but I soon realized that I was more interested in observing nature than analyzing it scientifically. After seeing my plant and animal drawings Mr. James suggested I look into pursuing wildlife illustration.

As a precursor to that I attended Salisbury Art College. The foundation art course I took was an opportunity to explore a range of disciplines, from drawing, painting and printmaking to illustration, and then to decide which one to pursue. That first year was a challenge for me, as for the first time I had to really get to grips with the rudiments of drawing, painting and . . . seeing.

Following on from this course I studied for a diploma in wildlife illustration in Carmarthen, Wales. This was an opportunity to establish and sharpen the skills I had developed the previous year. Many professional artists and illustrators came in to tutor us. They passed on to us their great enthusiasm for their given disciplines. One such person was the artist Gordon Stuart.

I did not fully appreciate at the time how accomplished Gordon was as an artist, with work in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London—he painted the last portrait of the poet Dylan Thomas. Gordon encouraged me in my nascent abilities when I had little confidence in them and said, “You will always paint.” He also wrote to me a letter of encouragement to wish me well on my first solo art show.

That first solo show was held at Oxford University in 1988. I owe much to my sister Maria, not only for suggesting the idea but also for getting me connected to the appropriate parties to make
it happen.

After completing my time at college in Wales, it became apparent that I was not really cut out to be a wildlife illustrator, but was more interested in painting landscapes. One college professor said he saw me as someone who wants to be down a country lane painting scenery—I think a “picture maker” was how he called it. And so, eventually, after having pursued several interim jobs, that is what I did.

The next five years proved to be very rewarding, but also financially rather challenging as I pursued my art. Initially, as I sought to pursue my art full-time, I felt like I had just walked off the end of a plank into the deep. I literally prayed to God for help, and He strengthened me in a way I had not known before. He also brought people into my life that spoke words of direction and encouragement to me.

One such person was Trevor Martin, an assistant pastor at my local church, who was also a practicing graphic designer. He took a look at my work—back in those days it was on slides, as we had not entered the digital era. I remember how he would press the slide viewer to his eye and declare “how delightful” as he viewed the artwork. For me this was one of those glimmers of light and encouragement that we all need along the road—especially when you are trying to find direction.

Trevor suggested that for the next six months I just focus on doing pen and watercolor views of townscapes and landscapes, and then at the end of it have an exhibition. This gave me not only a goal, but also a focus.

I set myself up with a stool, drawing board and watercolors, traveling by bicycle and train to paint the local scenic towns and villages of Hampshire and Surrey. Much to my surprise, I had many people approach me to ask if they could purchase my paintings, and I was able to sell many on the spot! I continued pursuing this way of working, creating artwork for exhibition and commission, for five years. It was a rewarding time in which I met many interesting folks on my painting adventures.

Eventually, looking for a more stable and predictable income, I decided to train in graphic design. Digital design was a new world for me as I got to grips with design principles and learned an array of software programs. The differing perceptions needed for design were an interesting complement to the more organic nuances of painting.

It was when I moved to the Bay Area, that my interest in oil painting was ignited. I started to read about the California plein air painters, a majority of whom were oil painters. In England, the soft light had lent itself to watercolors, but now in California, I could see that the more intense Mediterranean light lent itself to rendering the landscape in oils.

I am fortunate to live in San Francisco, not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. This gives me ready access to Marin County, it’s coastal Headlands and Mount Tamalpais. Further afield is the often fog-laden Mendocino coast, and to the East, the Sierra Nevada mountains. All great locations for plein air painting.

I tend to paint on canvas, as opposed to panels, as I like the “give” that you get from the non-rigid surface. I enjoy using heavy impasto and find that a palette knife is easiest for thicker applications of paint. But I prefer the softer more subtle effect that a natural bristle brush can bring, so I am experimenting, working with both in tandem.

At the moment I am reading and looking at landscape art from those who have already trod the path—John F. Carlson, Richard Schmid and David Curtis, for example. I am also looking at a diverse range of artists who are not associated with the plein air tradition, such as Richard Diebenkorn, and many British artists, such as John Piper, Samuel Palmer and Eric Ravilious.

I am blessed to live a five-minute walk from the de Young Museum, here in San Francisco, so I have had the opportunity to view the ongoing collection of art and the special exhibitions. Recently on show was David Hockney’s, “A Bigger Exhibition,” a collection of his huge canvases painted in Yorkshire. His paintings en plein air are a leap away from what is often considered as plein air art, but are nonetheless thought provoking and inspiring.

So I continue to pursue my painting adventures, sometimes as in life, with a halting step. I see that the beauty in a scene does not always come from a totality of unhindered harmony. The juxtaposition of disparate forms—a shattered rock, a sinuous storm-contorted tree, or a glacier creek—can converge into a harmonious whole, or, may leave us with an unresolved tension. Similarly, life does not provide us with a clear unobstructed path, but in navigating the obstacles we can discover a greater meaning and beauty. As plein air painters, may we not only paint a pleasing scene, but portray in our art this more complex beauty.

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