When I began painting regularly in 2010, I could feel a conflict in the representational quality of my work as compared with my mother-in-law’s wonderful abstract paintings that I have lived with for decades.  It took a while for me to accept it and just keep going. I love to work in a series and take time to expand on an idea, make commentary, or understand faces and forms.  The point is to achieve a good effort, call it done, and continue being productive.

With double portraits, I enjoy the way figures will relate to one another –  whereas a solitary human subject is demanding – and the way that negative space imposes itself.  Painting animal subjects is closely related to human subjects, but more forgiving.  Landscapes stem from my walks at different times and seasons, and force attention towards light and distance. Street scenes also stem from my walks where the quirkiness of perspective, structural lines and shapes, and outright charm of the area are always interesting. Maritime paintings are challenging excursions towards achieving a boat form that conveys grace and movement with compositional effects involving light and water.

The World of Work paintings (aka Workforce) are a combination of animal and human portraits that have served my development as a painter.  As a research administrator, I am aware of standards for ethical treatment for human and animal and subjects in research. I had suffered through a chaotic workplace environment over several years and regular painting outside of work helped me keep my head and spirit together.

The animal portraits are oil paintings on 12” x 12” panels. The inexpensive panel foundation is not “precious” and doesn’t require framing.  A small format was useful to gain experience handling oil paint, mixing colors, and producing figures that could improve within a series.  I take my time with each panel to achieve a satisfying, good effort. At this point, I’ve done over 20 animal panels, and have shown up to three together at a time. Ultimately, the series will allow different groupings and broader commentary derive from the combinations.

The double portraits of humans represent people I have either liked, or felt neutral about.  In the work environment, I would ask to take some quick cell-phone pics of sitters as reference material. The idea was that the work not be too precious to serve my aims for developing skills. Three paintings on canvas board were produced and mounted in a metal frame. Each sitter could take one painting and I would keep the one that was not selected. A few years ago, I changed jobs and left the poor environment but the idea of workplace people in a double portrait is still engaging.