From the Studio...

Dear you,

You asked where my inspiration comes from so here’s the smack down - there are other methods to my madness but for this bite its all about online searching. I'm a computer junkie and a perfectionist (shhhh! don't tell I might still be fooling people). When I sit down at the computer to get a creative buzz I usually start with google. I go to the images section and just start punching in nouns. As I search through the pages and pages of images for whatever reason, certain things just "grab". I feel something when I look at it and that's my first clue. I don't usually find an image and then blamo I'm painting. When I'm in the searching mode I just do a "save as" - in one of my many categorized hard drive folders - and keep going and going.

After I feel like I've added enough to my library of images I start surfing through my very full hard drive. Once I find something that really speaks to me I open it in Photoshop and play. I always combine several elements that I like in the multiple photos that I'm working with and add a twist to it. Although on a few occasions I loved the original photo so much that I've decided to ask permission to use it from the photographer.

After the Photoshop collage I print it out and take it to the canvas. As I push the paint around with my palette knife I will quickly get a feel for the piece. If it works then I keep going. If it doesn't - I've come to realize it never will so I just move on to the next piece and open up my hard drive all over again.

And that's that. At least when it comes to online searching. If I have time... I'd much rather hit the plein air circuit and feel the sun roasting my back.





PS. Thank you to the collector from NY that purchased "Landscape Reflection"!