My answers in english.

Question 1: Could you tell me something more about your love for art. What kind of role did art play in your childhood, and why did you eventually decide to become an artist? 

My mother has told me that when I was very young I would take bits of fabric, that had fallen onto the floor while she was sewing, and arrange them into shapes, of what I thought, resembled something. The last word of this sentence will become another theme in my life, but one time I got her attention, pointed to my creation and said, “airplane”.  When I got to kindergarten teachers introduced me to modeling clay, coloring books and finger-paints. That was fantastic. I couldn’t wait to get back each morning and see what kind of art project the teachers had for us. As I grew older my brother Doug and I would, if we weren’t fighting, draw together. We would pick a subject and see who could render it the best. I would never admit it, but his was always better. I didn’t know this was “art”, but I knew I loved it.

I first became aware of the idea of art and artists was when I discovered a book of my parents titled The Picture History of Painting by H.W. and Dora Jane Janson published in 1957. It started on page one with a cave painting of a Bison in France and ended with The Persistence of Memory by Dali. I devoured that book. (I still have it to this day.) I honestly believe this book was the starting point on my very long journey to becoming an “artist”.

The only classes I cared anything about in elementary and high school were science class and art class. The notes I took in class in other subjects had more drawings on them than actual notes. After I graduated came, the military, and a variety of schools and careers. During this very busy period of my life I would still make time do a drawing, illuminate a letter to a friend, or create a Christmas card. It wouldn’t be until the new millennium, with access to the internet, that I would actually sell my first painting. 

The “why” I became an artist was the opportunity to actually make a living as an artist that arrived with my discovery of eBay. Some friends of mine that had just begun to sell their artwork on eBay told me about their success and practically ordered me to try it. So I did a few watercolors and put them up for auction, and they sold. Excited I put up a few more and they sold. It wasn’t a lot of money, $15 to maybe $30 each, but I was giddy. It wasn’t long before I began to follow other artists on the site and saw that the paintings by those who worked in oil sold for significantly higher prices than watercolors, so I switched my medium to oil. When I had sold nearly 400 paintings on eBay, and had been accepted by two galleries I crunched the numbers and calculated that I had reached the point where I could make a living solely on the sales of my paintings. I am very fortunate that after sixteen years I’m still working as an artist. 

Question 2: You are self-taught, how did you do that? 

You basically just draw and paint a lot. After I was discharged from the military I thought I’d go to art school. I took one university “art” course and just didn’t get it. It was so not what I wanted to learn, and I eventually dropped the class. From then on, with the exception of a couple of life drawing classes I took in night school, I just tried to figure it out. I loved to draw but in time I got the urge to work in color. I played around with colored pencil for a while but that wasn’t really doing it for me, so I bought a beginners watercolor set, some Arches paper and started pushing paint around. I admit this was a very clunky method of learning, and it came with a lot of wrong turns, but in time I got pretty good at it. I’m sure I could have benefitted from some art education, but I was having fun experimenting and wasn’t really in any hurry. 

As I mentioned in the first question, the enticement of having more profitable sales on eBay prompted me to work in oil. So, once again, I bought a beginners oil paint set and began to employ that same hit or miss method of learning that I had used with the watercolors. My wife Karen, an amazing and very successful artist, gave me some helpful tips as well. I have to admit that, to this day, I’m not completely confident in my skills. I still begin each new piece with this thought in the back of my mind, “how am I going to do this?”

Question 3: Can you tell me more about your love for aircraft. 

Aircraft. Yeah, I love them. I’ve been fascinated with airplanes since childhood and still am today. My dad worked at a Lockheed plant where they built (and still do) the C-130. When I was very young my mom, younger brother and I would drive him to work before sunup and I remember seeing those planes on the flight line. Dad would also bring home Lockheed calendars for me. Each month was adorned with an image of the C-130 in one of its various configurations. After graduation from high school I enlisted in the Air Force to work around aircraft. In the late seventies, after my discharge, I took up flying sailplanes. Most weekends, weather permitting, I was at the glider port. This lead to my giving up on the idea of a liberal arts degree and I entered technical school to get my Airframe and Powerplant certificate. The required license necessary to work as an aircraft mechanic. Working at an airport surrounded by aircraft was great. It was during this time that I got my student pilots license. I was also renting a room from a friend who was a professional pilot flying freight at night, and I would occasionally fly as his “co-pilot” if I had the following day off. He also flew skydivers on the weekend, which is how I wound up briefly participating in that sport as well. Now, all these years later, I get to paint aircraft.

Question 4: What was your most interesting commission and why?

I’ve done a few commissions and all were enjoyable and interesting in their way, but I’d have to say, getting back to that airplane theme once again, the commission for Delta Airlines. It was offered to me by a previous gallery owner of mine who was working as a consultant with Delta. They wanted some original artwork for the walls of the Delta Sky Club Room at J.F. K. airport in New York. My contact said that they wanted five small paintings from me. Needless to say, I was very excited to get this gig. Photographing the planes was really fun. We had made arrangements for airport security to accompany us as I photographed various aircraft on the flight line. Even with the escort I was still stopped three times, and asked what I was doing there with a camera. There was a nostalgic quality to that day as well because I had worked for Eastern Airlines at that airport for a short period of time a few years earlier. I am usually very critical of my work, but I have to say, I was pretty happy with how those paintings came out.

Question 5: How does a painting come about?

I work entirely from photographs. Primarily because I acquire many of my images in the field, and my hours at the easel can vary from late morning to well after dark. When I’m photographing my subjects, either at an event or for a still life, I may take two to four hundred shots. I’ll go through all of them in Photoshop tagging possible candidates. Then I’ll cull out the top five or so, edit and color correct them then pick a favorite. I paint mostly on panel these days and I nearly always use an Ampersand Gessoboard. I tone the panel with a neutral gray acrylic which I apply with a brush. When the panel is completely covered I then use a small foam roller to smooth out the brush strokes until the surface is as uniform as I can get it. I then let it dry for 24 hours. I work up my drawing then transfer the outline to the panel or canvas using Saral Transfer Paper. 

If there is a significant portion of the composition that is made up of a particular color, I’ll mix up a gradation of that color on my palette in quantities that should get me through the first pass. I freeze these colors on my palette each night which helps preserve their consistency. I nearly always begin to paint at the top left corner of the panel and work my way down to the lower right. The first pass, if I’m lucky, will be a pretty good representation of what I hope to see when it’s complete. I try not to get too specific at this stage, but I do want to be close. The second pass of a painting is what I look forward to, because that is where the “painting” really starts to appear. If I need a medium because the color has significantly dulled down I use Gamblin Solvent Free Gel.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with varnish since I started painting in oils. I’ve tried so many different products I’ve lost count. Currently I apply a thin coat of Gloss Gamvar which does revive the color, but tends to dry unevenly, so I follow that a few days later with a light application of Winsor & Newton Satin spray varnish. That provides a uniform, albeit somewhat duller, surface which I actually kind of like.

Question 6: What is most characteristic for your work?

I’m not really sure. I’ve been told quite a few times by people who follow my work that they “recognize” paintings as mine when they see them. I suppose it could be how I crop my compositions. Personally I love negative space and so I cut a lot of stuff out of an image when composing a painting. This may be a hold over from my years as a graphic designer. I like to pare down an image to what I refer to as its “heart”. I think this may qualify as a characteristic. 

Question 7: Why realism? 

I love all genres of visual art, but since childhood, paintings by the realist painters were the ones I was most drawn to. I couldn’t believe that a person could create something like the Death of Marat  (even though I had no idea at the age of nine who Jacques Lois David was) with paint. I wanted to do something like that myself one day. I wasn’t very interested in painting people. I found that what I liked was painting objects created by people. I also wanted to paint them as accurately as I could to respect the people whose creative skill, engineering and imagination created those objects. Get rid of everything but the subject. Reveal its own inherent beauty. For this reason realism for me was a perfect fit.