"Backyard Tree" Pastel

This tree is the subject for my next painting, it will most likely be a small painting which could possibly develop into a larger painting.

Pastel Drawing of Nicole

This is a pastel drawing I did this evening of Nicole. I decided to start utilizing pastels more often in my drawings, in hopes that by resolving color on the scene I will be able to better translate my drawings into paintings.

"Self-Portrait on back porch"

"Self-Portrait on back porch" is a 22" X 30" canvas given to me by Nicole, like most of my paintings of recent, there are images beneath them, although this time an image not of mine. I have been painting desperately as of lately trying to encapsulate a sense of life; with images that not only reference what is seen in reality but what is felt through my understanding of reality. The portrait is bleeding from the inside out. The eyes are ghostly and almost non-existent. The figure is contemplative and feels every flick of color. He inhabits a place not too far outside his safe-haven, in real time and in real space, both figure and space exist in reality.

It is important in my opinion to understand reality and it is equally important to understand the human spirit or soul. To dedicate oneself to the act of creating is to dedicate oneself to an act of transcendence. I am invigorated by great art and search for it on a daily bases, mostly in the contemporary age in which we preside I am confounded by what is considered art. But that is why I choose to continue painting and not give into my confoundedness, letting it concern me more than that of what I see and feel, for those are the things in which I must gage my existence. They are the only things that I can perceive, justification of the conceptual is all in the mind.

Study of Nicole

I recently returned from Indiana, and after visiting my good friend Ross Wagner I became inspired to put my woodcuts on hold and begin painting. Ross is an amazing painter whom I share similar philosophies with on the creative process.

Shitake Mushroom studies