Watercolor and Acrylics
My media of choice is primarily watercolor and acrylics. Earlier in my career, I painted primarily in watercolors using traditional water color techniques. Later I used watercolors more like gouache, similar to the way it was used in late 19th and early 20th century posters.
Over the last decade most of my work in painting is in acrylics. I like to use them differently than most artists. I like creating dark tones using complementary colors. I like to define depth and shimmering colors through overlaying of transparent glazes. Lately I have been experimenting with combining techniques such as fluid painting and brushing with wet-on-wet techniques.
Portraiture
I recently completed my series on civil rights leaders for my Black Lives Matters series.
All my portraits start out as detailed, light pencil guidelines on canvas. I like to first build up the portrait with a dark color. Next I like to employ transparent glazes of the complementary color of the base color to create tone, shape and depth. The final portrait is wrapped up with color overlaying glazes, detailed brush work and review of the final vision emerging on canvas. I like to create portraits that are realistic, but with a painterly feel and not photorealistic art.
