About The Paintings
My art journey has led me through several painting styles and periods described below
from present day working backward…
Present Day — Return to Wild Nature
Contemporary impressionistic landscape paintings in oils
In 2018, I leapt full time into painting and chose one style to work with. The vivid, emotional, wild-nature impressionistic landscape paintings of my current period are a return to my roots — only now using oils instead of acrylics. The use of thick paint is called impasto painting which not only adds dimension but gives an emotional feeling to the work. I also paint “a premier coup” style, which is French for “first coup”. In other words, each section of a painting is completed at first pass. Where I place the brushstroke is where it stays. I don’t let dry and rework and where I do rework, it is in the moment, wet on wet. This gives the painting a freshness and immediacy which I feel best reflects the intensity of Nature.
Nature saved me growing up. I spent many hours walking barefoot in forests, up in trees, and resting in magical places that I found. The feeling was one of exceptional presence and connection, with everything around me intense and radiant, yet also restful and loving. It is still this way, and this aliveness is what I strive to bring to the canvas.
Earth is my forever muse, so however I’m in nature, whether hiking, backpacking, kayaking, napping, traipsing barefoot, swimming or picnicking, I take snapshots with my phone. From these reference photos and my feelings and memories, once back in the studio, I strive to recreate the spiritual essence and wildness of being in Nature.
Magical-Realism Dreamscapes
Mixed-Media Paintings
I remain inspired and excited about these semi-abstract mixed-media art pieces. Both the technique and the materials are of my own creation, consisting of a stage-one slurry of sand, leaves, crushed eggshells, and dry tempura, followed by stage two of flattened eggshells and acrylics, both stages following my own artistic technique that I call dream interpretation, which is initially abstract, and then loosely interpreted. These one-of-a-kind, extremely-textured, 3-D, artworks can be very heavy (some less so as I learned they could be done on a smaller scale using stretched canvas) and required a lot of space, both material and psychic, and the ability to work flat as well as vertical. Someday, with a different studio, I may return to this style.
Telling Stories
Contemporary expressionistic paintings
This has been a small stream of paintings that has flowed throughout the other early periods. Being first a writer, I am telling stories with these paintings and because there are no words, the viewer is able to find their own story in them. The artworks benefitted from both my skill in impressionism and the finely-tuned blending and rendering I learned during the Rose period.
The Rose Period
Contemporary museum-quality floral paintings
My second period (roughly 2002-2009) called me to paint the Rose. This symbol of life and the divine feminine, swept me away and dominated my painting world for several years. From the Rose, I became a master at on-canvas blending and using light and dark colors to evoke depth through curvature and dimension (including depth of feeling). My rose period began in acrylics and after a couple years, I added oils to my repertoire, which allowed for even more precise blending of colors.
The Journey Begins with Wild Nature
Impressionistic landscape paintings in acrylics
I began my painting journey in 1998 doing vivid, colorful, emotionally-energized, impressionistic landscapes using acrylics. I can recall the energy, freedom and excitement as if it was yesterday. Being self-taught, and due to the sudden onset of painting, I didn’t know the words then, but these impasto paintings (done with thick brushstrokes) were created in the style called “alla prima” or “a premier coup“, with each brushstroke laid down wet-on-wet without drying and reworking. Even though they were acrylics (which are super quick drying) I would work that quickly and with that much paint. These landscape paintings would be completed on the spot and I rarely had a work in progress for the first 3-4 years of painting.
