I always liked to draw and take pictures. I’ll date myself by mentioning I began with Venus Paradise coloring and Jon Gnagy sketch kits. I snapped away with my Kodak Instamatic camera and tried sketching and painting some things I liked with pencil or cheap oils and canvas boards. My attempts were met with little enthusiasm and I lost interest for a while. In my late teens I came back to photography and bought a Pentax manual camera. I enjoyed exploring the ways film speed, exposure, and aperture could work together to draw and focus attention. I took it seriously and was pleased with the output. I developed and learned. I stumbled on an article that suggested learning to paint would help develop a better understanding of the fundamentals that would make more interesting pictures. I started to paint and never looked back. In learning to draw and paint, I began to understand composition and depth. I learned about values, color, and chroma. I realized that, to an extent, these were already naturally present in what I was doing. Through constant exploration and experimentation, I started to see how all these pieces used separately and together stimulate focus, mood, and emotion. Where photography can capture a profound or beautiful moment, it can only take us so far. Painting, to me at least, is a very enjoyable way of continually discovering deeper ways of maybe expressing something extra. This site is for the great people who have shown an interest in what I have been doing. For others who wander in, I hope you find something you enjoy.
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