"Slade" Painting

All my life I have been interested in depicting what I see or recall. Born and raised in San Antonio, I started doodling with ballpoint, felt-tipped, and gel pens when I was about two years old. I received my BFA in fine arts in 2002 from the University of Texas at San Antonio. I focus my eye on the human figure, using an essential approach to painting. I grab a handful of brushes (or maybe just one or two) and use a streamlined palette consisting of a handful of colors from which I can achieve a vast range of tones. My concept is purely aesthetic; I want the piece of art to be visually interesting (beautiful, hopefully) above all else. I concern myself with elements that - to me - are critical to producing a good painting: composition, form, light, color, paint quality, brushwork. I prefer describing my subjects in a way that is not overly complicated, rendering with accurate draftsmanship but without superfluous detail. I paint in a spontaneous fashion, driven by a very basic visual idea but not knowing specifically what the end result will be. Responding to what happens on the canvas with each decision that I make, reflecting moment by moment, keeps me present in the painting experience and gives me the greatest possible enrichment.