I've been a full-time working artist since I graduated from Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, FL way back in 1981. For most of that time I was a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. By the year 2000 I was getting restless producing art for other people. I had been dabbling with my own paintings off and on for a long time, also going to artshows and galleries to look at what I considered 'real' art. Eventually, the confidence to show (and hopefully sell) some of my paintings led me to apply to some local artshows. At the time I was doing realistic watercolors, old buildings with peeling paint, etc, trying to be like Andrew Wyeth. I was also still doing graphics work full-time. Well, it didn't take long for me to figure out I was never going to be Andrew Wyeth, and there were already scores of talented watercolor painters out there with work as good or better than mine. So that got me thinking.
The most important lesson I learned from doing artshows was, your art MUST stand out from the crowd or else it will hardly be noticed. No matter how much time & effort goes into it, if it's not that much different from the artist three rows down. Forget about it!
So. I began to search for my own 'style' of painting. Experimenting with color, compositions and just trying to tap into whatever came to me that made me say, "oh yeah!". And after about a month of "oh no's" I finally began creating something I really felt good about. It was bold, colorful, not too tight, not too splashy and most importantly, it didn't look like anything else I'd seen out there! ........... "Oh Yeah!!"
From then on I just painted as much as possible and entered some more shows. Thankfully, my new work was getting the kind of attention and appreciation I hoped for and sales followed. Even better, a year later I met Lee at an artshow I was doing in Ft. Lauderdale! Soon after, she joined me on the artshow circuit and in July 2004 we were married. I coaxed her out of Miami and we now live in the Melbourne Florida beachside community of Indialantic.
Now here it is 2007 and I'm still going strong, having moved into exciting new directions with my art. But my goal with my art continues to be the same: Love what I do, and others will love it too. With the grace of God, I will be loving what I do for many years to come. |
