Although I also paint from real life whenever I can, many of the paintings I make are derived from scenes that I have either seen or dreamt. I always see what I am going to paint in my mind first. If I succeed in reproducing my vision, perhaps not exact in all its details, but keeping the essence of it, then I know the painting will come through.
The first jet can be a sketch. It took me many years to come to be way more spontaneous in my painting style. I learned the classical way of making many sketches before going on the canvas. At the end of my many years in art school my teachers told me “now forget everything you have learned.” It took me a long time “to forget”. Actually you never forget. The brain has created certain path and consciously or unconsciously you use what you have learned, always, and it is a good thing.
The journey is the reward.
What is important to me is watching the progress of the painting process. What is coming out is it really what I wanted to convey? During this process the magic can be lost very quickly. At that point I may add elements that increase the presence of the painting, and remove elements that detract from the subject. Again it took me years to come to that point to create a piece out of thin air so to speak. Even if you are out painting a plein air piece or are in front of a model, the process might appear uncanny. It is just magical to the onlooker who might not know too much about painting, it might seem supernatural even to you. Somehow or other all you have learned comes to the rescue. You can express whatever you like the way you intended it, because you know all the rules and how to break them. Every successful painting acquires an identity of its own, hopefully at a very early stage. Understanding which colors belong, and which ones don't, which composition works and what patterns belong there, is not easy, and only occurs through diligent, concerted examination of the emerging personality of the painting.
It is vitally important to paint, keeping the integrity of the painting as a whole constantly in mind. The painting should proceed smoothly and directly to completion.
Painting is an adventure in its creation as well as in its appreciation. I try to make paintings that express my feelings about the world in the most direct way, using whatever technique I feel would allow me to do that.
I like to paint on several paintings at the same time. This allows me to take a break from a specific subject and get back to it later with a fresh outlook.
My life seems to trnsform itself into a constant stream of paintings. They flow out on their own. No sooner one is finished that one claims existence.
My favorite period is the renaissance period, when painting was breaking out of the dark ages and becoming very mystical in its realism. Painters were learning to paint people as they actually looked rather than as stylized icons. People started looking real, which was shocking at the time. But the artists of the renaissance seem to have the ability to paint more than reality, as if they took a peak beyond the veil of illusion.
