My painting style has to do with feeling, emotion. It’s about capturing that magical moment when the truth and sheer beauty of nature take your breath away. You know, I think, as artists, we’ve all experienced it. You walk through a garden, your eye is drawn to a flicker of light and you see, for a moment, an enchanting glow as the light dances across the surface of a petal or shines brightly through a leaf. And you know that you have to translate that joy into your work.
Have you ever watched a dewdrop as it emits shards of brilliant refracted light? As it is precariously suspended on a petal, the slightest breeze will lift the curtain on the work, and in your mind you can imagine the subsequent events. Capturing this moment will bring movement and energy, expectation and life to your painting. I like to get up close, from a bird’s eye view, and bring viewers of my work right into the character of my subject: I want them to “know” my subject.
I try to take this feeling, this unfolding story, and with it, bring the viewer of my painting into that world, my world, the world within the frame. To do this, I suggest you analyze what it is about your theme that has you spellbound. Ask yourself: is it the shimmering light, the refracted fragments, maybe the angle the dewdrop is at? This indicates that the breeze has caused the stem to sway gently and the dewdrop to rattle. It’s all of these things, and the best way to emphasize this is to meet up close and personal.
It’s something instinctive for me and I decided that if I wanted to grow as an artist, I had to learn to analyze what I do and why.
We never stop learning and that is what is so rewarding about painting. It is a journey that always takes us down new paths, revealing new directions. We should never be afraid to take these paths and experiment. Keep an open mind, try new things. Decide what is the very essence of ‘us’. Now that’s what we have to paint. Paint what moves you, and you will feel complete and it will show in your work.
Believe in yourself and paint from your soul. Paint the subjects that you are passionate about. With this combination you will discover that you are not only sharing a part of yourself with others, but that you are provoking emotions in the viewers of your work. It is this that people remember, not the skill with which you have painted something, nor the precision with which you use the brush. No, it’s the way your vision came out of the painting and caught their emotions, allowing them to be absorbed and haunted by that moment you’ve suspended in time.