I Love Painting People

Greensboro Girl With Red 2005

I have always loved drawing and painting the figure. When I was painting in watercolor I was also entering a lot of juried shows, and figures were my subject of choice. My artist idols at the time were Alex Powers and Dean Mitchell. They both paint powerful figures and I could always find inspiration in their respective works. I learned a lot from painting those figures. I began to understand colors, composition, and how to control the paint. After a few years I achieved Signature status with the Georgia Watercolor Society, and also Southern Watercolor Society, a regional watercolor organization.
These are a couple of my watercolor figures:

  

Greensboro Girl with Yellow 2005

When I got more serious about offering my work for sale I listened to people who are supposed to "know" that paintings of people don't sell. Well, I decided I'd better learn how to paint other subjects, so I moved away from figure painting for a while. The transition from watermedia to oil also required a learning curve that made figure painting much more difficult. I tell people, with watercolor, if you want a lighter color you simply add water. When painting with oil, however, adding white won't work. I had to learn a lot about color mixing, so I stuck with landscapes, florals, and animals.

I've started again with figures, letting my experience guide me and concentrating on the experience of  painting rather than a preconceived notion of what the end result should be.

I took these three paintings to Watson Gallery and they kept them. So, I'm back into figure painting for a while.

Discovery 36"x 24"

Distraction 30"x 30"

Pondering Pink, 30"x30"