About
Artist Biography
I was lucky enough to be born and raised in the very art friendly small town of Ashland, Oregon. My mother was a teacher and brought home reams of scratch paper that my brother and I could draw on, make paper airplanes, and paper crafts, and my father was a contractor and expanded our home with an addition that was specifically an arts and crafts room.
I always loved to draw, animals were my favored subject and I immersed myself in books, learning everything I could about what I was going to draw next. I was first recognized with an award for artistic ability in elementary school during fifth grade graduation.
By the time I entered high school, I discovered professional quality pencils and saved up for my first acrylic, watercolor, and oil painting sets. I took every art class the school offered, but I struggled with being taught new media, or new ideas on how to approach a subject. I generally stuck to independent study in my art classes and continued to teach myself how to draw and paint. I was stubborn and independent, but I continued to grow my abilities and was first featured in a gallery at 17.
After high school I attended college interested in an art degree, but my stubbornness and independent streak quickly led me to the conclusion that an art degree was not in my future. Shortly thereafter my brother introduced me to flameworking glass, a new media that I fell in love with. I set down my paints and pencils and made my living shaping glass with a bench mounted torch. I married my high school sweetheart, had a son, and bought a house. However, a back injury would soon make hours behind a torch an impossibility. I returned to school and earned a degree in pre-law, but I graduated at the height of the economic downturn when jobs were scarce and the expense of law school was daunting. With no creative outlet and little income, I picked up a pencil and drew a picture of our son as a present to give to my wife for Christmas. It rekindled my love affair with two dimensional art. It was not long before I began receiving commissions for graphite and charcoal portraits, and I restored my oil and watercolor painting supplies. When I am not working on commissions, I draw and paint a variety of subjects. My style is generally realism, but not necessarily photo realism, I like my work to retain that quality of expression a camera cannot achieve. I work with a variety of subjects from people and animals to buildings and vehicles and look for interest in anything I find. I remain almost entirely self taught.
Currently, I live with my wife and son in Beaverton, Oregon. Where my other interests include music, fly-fishing, the outdoors, gardening, cooking, photography, and hiking and running when my feet and knees allow.
About the site
This is uncharted territory for me. I have built this site from the ground up and I am responsible for maintaining it. I will be constantly adding new content. Writing is not my strong suit, and if you find any errors, grammatical or otherwise, please let me know and I will try to fix it.
I have teamed with Blick Art Materials to offer the same drawing and painting materials I use. I earn a small commission off of any purchase that results from a click from this site. I try not to clutter the site with banner ads and make the links as inconspicuous as possible. Blick Art Materials is a company that I routinely order from and find them to have a great selection at affordable prices.