Midst Of The Muskeg Painting

While my education is in Graphic Design my passion for fine art has driven me to become a self taught painter. I create nonrepresentational abstract art in both traditional and digital mediums. Some may compare my work to the original Abstract Expressionism style and movement of the 1940's and 1950's. Certainly influence does come from that N.Y. School of artists but I also appreciate landscape and still-life art by many painters like Cezanne, Van Gogh and Monet to name a few. Whether it be traditional or digital I employ a similar specific process and techniques in making my artwork which in some ways is related and crossover from one medium to the other. Obviously the main difference between traditional and digital painting revolves around the support or substrate and the applied materials and tools. Specifically I use acrylic or oil paint on a primed cotton or linen canvas support for traditional painting. I will also be experimenting with wood panels soon. In digital painting the materials make for much easier clean up that's for sure. The materials simply include a high performance computer with digital “paint”, digital “canvas” and digital drawing tablet with pen/brush. Where as a lot of artists just like to create with total spontaneity my approach and process is a bit different from those of my similar style. I’m always planning the work with a preliminary drawing that I like to make before each painting. It serves as an intentional directly related design to the final outcome of the painting. Although I do use some spontaneous techniques I do appreciate the control and direction that planning and drawing before hand offers. This somewhat intentional process is also practical because it saves me time to complete the maximum amount of work and provides more consistent good outcomes compositionally. Inevitably this will also result in less waste of materials. I believe this unconventional hybrid way of working comes from the Graphic Designer in my DNA and is a unique part of my style.