My Story
I've been making art all my life, I just can't stop! As far back into childhood as I can remember, I was making art. I would sit in my room for hours drawing tanks, soldiers, birds, people, whatever. My parents noticed, of course, and started getting me my own art supplies and even a drafting board to work on. That was it, I was hooked. As I got older, my grandparents began taking me around to the art galleries of Scottsdale, Arizona. They collected watercolor paintings, so I got to go to a number of show openings and meet the watercolor artists. Soon, I was teaching myself to paint with watercolors. I began with Zoltan Szabo's Landscape Painting book and worked my way through the exercises. I still own that book, as dog-eared and beat up as it is, and refer to it as I teach my own students.
When it came time to decide on a career, it was a no-brainer. I was to be an artist. I went to undergraduate school at the University of Arizona and then moved on to graduate school at the University of Delaware. Soon afterward, I found myself working as an artist in Portland, Oregon and teaching art at Willamette University. Today, I live back in Phoenix, Arizona with my wife Marla and son Liam. I teach art to junior high and high school students and love my job. Teaching young people is the absolute best.
I also practice painting every day and exhibit my work. My paintings reflect the beauty and mystery of the American southwest. I love the light of the west and how it carves out mountains and valleys. I tend to work in a tonalism style of painting, with an effort to infuse the images with a sense of mood and atmosphere.
