Mesker Storefronts Photograph

Following a long, rewarding career as an architect, and later 8 exciting years as a museum exhibit designer and builder, I now spend my time painting full time in my studio. I have always believed that the secret to keeping one's work fresh lies in experimentation and trying new things. Long an admirer of loose watercolor work I took a workshop with well known watercolor artist Andy Evansen. In watercolor I start and finish a painting in one sitting. Watercolor is fluid and transparent, and rather unforgiving. For me spontaneity and looseness is key. The whole trick is to work wet and allow the fluid paint colors to mix and merge, allow for soft edges, and maintain enough control to successfully complete a painting. I also roam the high plains of the western United States with my camera and photograph the old, weather beaten surfaces and patinas of buildings and vehicles. These rich surfaces and compositions provide inspirations for my layered oil and acrylic paintings. “Pentimento” is a term often used to define the revealing of painting or part of a painting that has been covered over by later painting. I have always been attracted to the history implied by this term. My painting method echoes this concept, involving constant experimentation as I make marks and cover them, leaving earlier marks revealed below later layers. As I add layers and work towards completion, the paintings eventually develop their own history.