2010

This is the start of the next decade in my life. Could be my last but keeping fingers crossed I make it through.As a painter this will be an important one for me as I should fully develop and improve on my way of painting. I feel I am close but not there yet as I am sure most painters feel. The landscapes I paint will no doubt look different over the years both in style and brushwork and most importantly to me values.this is my passion,to get the right value in the right spot. Painting snow is one of my favorite things and I wish it was not going to be below zero for the weekend as i would love to get out in it.Will see how the wind is. Hope all who read this have a safe and fun New Years Eve. See you next year

About Me

Well on with the story. After school I got married and had a little girl and proceeded to spend the next 18 years working to support said wife and child. never mind work history,it is boring and not relevant to my art although it provided me with incentive to change,I started wood carving back in the late 80's and enjoyed it. I was an fanatical fisherman and carved fish. I taught myself how to carve and paint fish over the course of a few years and got pretty good at the carving aspect. Maybe I will post a image of one of my carvings, First have to take pic.. Any way my wife is allergic to wood dust so there ended my carving unless I did not want the wife. Cheaper and easier to give up on carving! I then started painting Fish on masonite using acrylics in their underwater environment.Trust me We are getting to the end of this tale!!My neighbor happened to be Brian Stewart who is a member of Plein Aire Painters Of America. See we are getting to the end! Anyways he looked at my work and suggested I switch to oils and start painting from life. After giving me a demo in my backyard and commenting on how easy it was I took the bait and have been hopelessly hooked from that point on. Basically self taught took a Atelier workshop with Ciceile Hartleib a student of Allan Banks that taught me quite a bit. Another one with Brian Stewart which taught me a little more and the rest is pure me with all the other influences that one can find on the net or museum. have been very fortunate to have the friendship Of Bob Bonawitz who is a great landscape painter who more so than anyone else helped turn me into a painter. I owe him allot of thanks for showing me the way. There now you know. the secret is out I am an Untrained Artist. I manage my addiction with out group support and use home remedies to treat my affliction. I will now on focus more on the painting side after this long winded tale. It takes awhile when you are 54 to fill in the blanks. So onward and upward to the new blog!

First Post A hopefully brief history of me

Never thought that someday I would be sitting at a keyboard writting about myself and art. I took typing in 9th grade  almost 40 years ago! I find all this tech stuff fascinating and a little strange for a guy who grew up in the late 50's and 60's. I remember Dick Tracy talking into his watch and now people walk around with bluetooths plugged in their ears. Used to be when you saw someone walkng down the street talking to themselves you avoided them cause you know they just might be a touch off? So anyway here I sit. I am almost 54 and learning all these new things so I guess there is hope for us old dogs. I always wanted to be an artist just took a long time. I was the typical kid drawing his way through school not concentrating on anything in particular, just bumping along. Did a brief tour in the Army and decided that being an artist would be way better than a deisel mechanic..Upon getting out I enrolled at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and took a year of fine art education until my money ran out. So ended my formal education as an artist. Will continue on next post.