What I make (product):
I create joyful paintings of relationships and love. My art is big, happy images of critters on colorful backgrounds. These pieces celebrate life using cheerful colors and expressing unencumbered emotions as read on animal’s faces.
How I make it (method):
In preparation to determine what story I want to tell in each piece, I gather input from the pet’s owners, my own intuition, and sometimes an animal communicator who transcribes how the pet sees his life. I choose the colors of the animal’s eyes, skin, and coat, establish composition by sketching, and meditate on the expression and emotion I will convey. When I squeeze the soft-bodied acrylics onto my palette, it’s time to GO!
I work free and happy in an uninhibited style. I grab my big filbert brush and condense hours of planning into a few dozen brush strokes which are the essence of the form, emotion, and physical characteristics of the subject. I paint the animal first then divine what color the background should be. The acrylic permeates my surface leaving a perfect map of my brushstrokes which I finish with pastels and charcoal.
Why I make it (my art’s meaning):
My technique utilizes black lines and colorful, expressive brushwork to suggest the transcendent nature of animals interacting within the boundaries of human creation. Many people ask about the strong line-work in my art. I would say that the black lines, like those I use as a trained architect when drawing plans, delineate boundaries and describe volume and space. As a contemporary artist, I allow myself to add vibrant, meaningful color to the line-work in order to infuse emotions, energy, and feelings into my art.
In painting, I seek to understand what our animal friends mean to us, our relationship with them, and the importance of their presence in our lives. I feel our pets have an important story to tell. They are often the favorite family member, exceptional confidants, and most loyal companions that we can know. Our relationship can go beyond the physical and bring us to our true nature and purpose: unconditional love. My paintings are portraits of adoration. This body of work uses subject, line-work, and color to create emotional surveys of interactions with the creatures we know and love.