Into the Sound

My paintings are an expression of my love for our beautiful natural world and its inhabitants. What I create in my artwork is driven by my passion for the infinitely interesting colors and forms that I see while spending time outdoors. This piece was created en plein air in the Skagit Valley area of Washington State. It's a fairly simple scene, but I loved the texture of my own handmade surface on gatorboard, and the red acrylic underpainting showing through a bit.

I enjoy painting wildlife, botanicals, and landscapes inspired by the Pacific Northwest and my travels in many parts of North America and beyond. My work is representational as well as expressive - I want to paint with an eye for true to life detail, yet I love capturing character and personality in the birds and animals that I paint. As I continue to portray my subject matter in a fairly realistic manner, I’m also developing exciting ways of creating a loose, painterly atmosphere, border, or background in my artwork. My most current work reflects this exploration into a greater diversity of mood and texture. Approaching my paintings with a playful, spontaneous attitude and finishing with areas of more focused detail gives me more than just an image but rather a story, a metaphor, or an abstracted reality.