Watercolor is a medium which captures light by it’s very transparency. Brilliant pigment flows off the brush onto the paper, leaving tiny specks of white. The resulting sparkle and characteristic brush marks and edges create an expressiveness that I love.

My subject matter is the world around me. Surrounding the small town in northern California where I live is a landscape of rich contrasts: steep conifer slopes with dark soil and open golden meadows with clusters of oak and madrone. Most dramatic is a river that boasts strong seasonal shifts; swift and dark green in winter, pale and slow in summer, revealing rocks and sand bars and willows. This environment provides constant inspiration to me.

Each year I visit Greece, where the light is brighter, thinner, and higher keyed than in my corner of California. It is a dry climate: the pines are paler, the vegetation of the olive groves is a light grey green, and the soil is pale sienna.  The light colored limestone and marble bedrock protrudes through the earth in cliffs and hills and is used in building and paving.  Water is everywhere and reflected as a bright light blue. The result is a light of great intensity.

Whatever its origins, painting is a journey.  The process is always an intense and gratifying adventure.  Between the eye and the execution lies the heart of the image.