I began my artistic career as an outdoor painter, setting up my easel wherever I found inviting views of water, trees, or fields. Now, about a decade later, I am still a painter of landscapes, but my way of representing them has changed markedly.
I usually start a painting by looking at photos taken on travels. When a particular scene draws my attention, I begin to make a number of sketches, often in watercolor, gouache, or pencil. While the first sketch usually has a documentary quality, the later ones tilt toward explorations of the scene’s range of meanings and moods.
Eventually I move to the easel. First I spend some time experimenting with color schemes that I hope will express my intentions. Once I have made a decision, even if tentative, I reach for the brush and begin to portray the scene.
After a while my imagination, as though impatient with the more mechanical task of transferring a scene from a photo or sketch, takes over, steering me swiftly away from the model into new realms. As I obliterate some areas, expand others, scratch, scumble, and build texture, the painting takes shape. At times figurative elements from the original scene remain part of a painting, at others they disappear completely, yielding to pure abstraction.
The process has its own momentum, provides its own direction, and finds its own conclusion.