I believe it may be a combination of my background in mechanical design (with it’s preciseness) and my interest in the human form and it’s numerous shapes
and interaction with light, that drives me to create my portraits.
I enjoy a good artistic challenge and feel that the human form and portrait is of the most challenging subject matter.
I strive to capture the life I see in my subjects, to convey the personality or particular emotion I feel the subject is portraying.
My goal and main style of portraiture is photo-realism and I continue to search for and discover new techniques for achieving it. My current tools of choice are my airbrushes.
I’ve drawn and painted all my life in one form or another, but have recently fallen in love with the airbrush as a fine art
tool and what I found could be accomplished with one.
I start by preparing the canvas with multiple layers of gesso, applied with a combination of roller and squeegee. Wet-sanding between coats, I apply layers until the texture of the canvas
is completely buried, leaving an ultra smooth surface to paint on.
Next, I project the reference photo onto the canvas. With the image projected, I carefully sketch the portrait, only
applying lead to the shadowed areas, as 90% of the paint I use is transparent.
Along with the effects resulting from a variety of erasers and scratching and scraping tools, the airbrush’s wide range of subtleties and gradations lend a great hand toward the goal of photo-realism.