After a 25 year career in graphic design, an opportunity in 1999 to create a painting of a clients office building for a brochure cover changed the direction of my artistic interests. I began to immerse myself into the world of fine art.
Napa in the 50's and 60's was much different than today. I remember when cows outnumbered wineries. There were about a dozens or so wineries back then, now there are hundreds. My playground were the rolling hills behind our neighborhood. We hiked, made forts in the weeds and had dirt clod battles, and made treehouse lookouts.
These paintings are the first in a series I plan to do that bring back some of those childhood memories of the Napa Valley and surrounding areas.
These painting were inspired by the recent passing of Henry Fukuhara. He inspired many artists and will be greatly missed. I referred to a photo I had taken of him while leaving my studio. The style is my attempt to do the painting in a similar style as Henry's.
On a visit to Huntington Library, I saw this elderly man reading the paper. I was attracted to his white suit and red bow tie. After completing the painting I took it to my art clubs monthly meeting. We encourage members to bring recently completed paintings to share with the group each month. After the meeting a member came up and said he thought the person in the painting was a doctor friend of his. The next morning I received a call from a doctor who said, "I hear you did a painting of me, I'd like to see it." I scheduled a time to meet him at his office to show him the painting. The painting was a big hit with his co-workers. The only negative comment was that they wished I hadn't made him bald. I said I had a camera with me and if he was interested I could take his picture and reworked the painting to get more of a likeness. He was a nice gentleman and visited with me for a while. I came to find out his wife had been active in plein air painting and that he had an appreciation for art and was a collector. He asked if I was going to take his picture or not, so I did. After reworking the painting, I called to schedule a time for him to review the changes, he asked that I change the white shoes to brown before coming back, so I did. He was pleased with the final revisions and purchased the painting.
Had to wave goodbye to 'Wave Goodbye' which recently sold. While on a bike ride with a group of our friends and their kids, we stopped at a beach in San Pedro. Several of the kids in our group thought it would be fun to wade out to the breakers. They were surprised by the size of the waves crashing into the breaker. When I saw their reaction to the waves, I came up with the title for this painting, before it was painted.
This has been an award winner. 1st Place, San Gabriel Fine Arts Association; 3rd Place, Mid-Valley Art League; Juried into a Laguna Beach exhibition at Southern California Arts Association.
Born in SF, CA, grade school years in Napa, Jr HS in Thousand Oaks, HS & Jr College in Bloomfield Hills, MI, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena BFA '77. I've resided in the San Gabriel Valley the past 25 years with my wife and 2 daughters. > > >
In 2000 I began taking watercolor classes. I have had watercolors accepted in the San Diego WC Society International Exhibition and Watercolor West and am a Juried Member of Valley Watercolor Society. I'm past President of Mid-Valley Arts League (2008-2011). > > >
In 2003 I launched Fine Artists Factory (FAF), a 5,000 sq.ft. drawing & painting studio/gallery, to support fellow artists, and to pursue my own fine art career. During the 4 years FAF was in Pasadena, I curated over 60 gallery exhibitions, hosted more than 20 workshops, and coordinated figure drawing sessions 4 times a week. > > >
In 2008 I helped create Studio2310 where I work with 2 other artists. > > >
Currently my medium of choice is acrylic.
