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 Galleries:  Pet Portraits   Old Cars/Trucks   Headgear & Hobbies    People Portraits   

Landscape Still Life & Floral

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Four for Wisconsin Roads Green Cap & Fishing Lure	Duke Minnie	My Three Sons Old Truck Spring Green Road	Peter Miss Heidi	Winter's End, Trailing Arbutus Pat & Cherokee

Portraits of people and animals are my favorite subjects. Consequently, I have galleries of People Portraits and Pet Portraits.  However, I also enjoy rendering still life and landscape subject matter as shown in the Old Cars/Trucks, Landscape Still Life & Floral and Headgear & Hobbies galleries. I enjoy capturing the personalities of my subjects both the animate, people and pets, and the inanimate, cars, trucks, flowers, caps, hats and just about any subject.  Portraits are often more challenging than just painting the physical likeness of the subject.  Since I can only paint what I can see, quality photographs with ample detail are imperative and must reflect the personality, look or mood of the subject as well.  Digital photographs work especially well, as I can enlarge and zoom in to capture details that might not be apparent in a smaller snapshot, though, these are often usable, especially if accompanied with the negative for enlargements. I create my portrait and still life paintings with transparent watercolor media using high quality Schminke and Winsor & Newton watercolors on d'Arches watercolor papers.  The challenge in rendering with watercolors is to capture the spontaneity of the medium and yet create a realistic representation of the subject. This is even more challenging when you consider that most mistakes can not be changed, scrubbing the paper surface also damages it, creating a dead area, without luminosity.  For transparent watercolors to read well, the paint lays over the white of the paper allowing light to reflect through the paint to the white paper and back, if you damage the paper and the paint is absorbed into the paper, this no longer happens and the scrubbed area will not blend with the rest of the painting.  So mistakes in watercolor are opportunities to learn and start over.  The transparency and luminosity of watercolor is unique and this immediacy sets it apart from other painting and drawing mediums. Most of my watercolor portrait and still life compositions are very simple because a realistic representation of the subject is my main concern, particularly in the people portraits and the pet portraits as well as the old cars and trucks and other still life subjects. I try to create compelling and interesting compositions that accentuate and enhance the subject though not particularly complex.

All artwork is commissioned for personal use and may not be reproduced without the artist's written permission and all reproduction and copyrights are retained by the artist.