I am an American "practicer"of art, living in the Washington, DC area, and I love to draw and paint. I am currently working in oils and watercolors, exploring pastels, and occasionally dabbling with colored pencils, charcoal, pen and ink, gouache, or one of the many art toys we call tools. I have always adored creating art, but not until I jumped into daily painting in 2007 did I ever learn as much as I am learning now, or have the opportunity to paint as much as I am painting now. I have made sacrifices to be able to paint daily; poverty and alienation sometimes have made the dream seem thin, but yes, it is well worth it.
I love the tools of an artist, the colors, the feel of paper, the smell of paint, the sound of a brush stroke on canvas, the way a painting emerges and suggests its own direction. I am caught up in the depth and magic of painting.
The depth of painting is what makes me call myself an art "student". There is no end of learning about art. The deeper you go into the workings of it, the more you realize there is to learn. The subtleties amaze me. The magic of painting is what happens when you look at a painting and connect with it: you can almost feel the sunshine and the warmth in the painting on your skin, or sense a cool shadow on a hot summer day, you can remember precisely the smell of a ripe peach, or the way spring air felt, and it is the magic in the painting that brings you that memory. I hope to eventually paint what is NOT seen: the air and the light, smells, memories, although I have not yet been able to do that. Study and practice, practice and study…
I am still in the crafting stages of this grand study, learning how to manipulate paint to portray values, shapes and colors. Perhaps by the time I am satisfied with my technical ability, I will have realized what it is that I want to "say" with my art. I imagine it will be a mirror of sorts, to reflect what I see as the beauty in our world, or the tenderness of a glance, or the delicacy of a flower, to bring to the viewer a bit of wonder.
