Welcome to Sanctuary

Drawing is the life-blood of my art practice. My collectors know they get authentically skilled, quality drawings, created with only the best in archival drawing media when they purchase my art. I work in many drawing media, including mostly charcoal, graphite, and colored pencil. I enjoy drawing animals, people, nature, and still-lives most of all. So far watercolor paper is my favorite  surface to draw on.

An artist who can draw well, can do almost anything well in art, my drawing teacher at university used to say. She was right. I credit my ability to draw from real life subjects, references, and imagination for my ability to notice and render form, light, proportions, and value with precision in my paintings. In a day and age where many "artists" trace images and think they are drawing, or even worse, pretend they can draw by making AI or digital platforms do the heavy lifting in the absence of skill,  I take comfort in knowing that I have applied myself in this discipline with much rigor over the years.

Painting to me is a lot like composing music: a dance between the creator and the subject in frequencies. Musicians use sound and I use light to depict my vast array of subjects in my signature etherealism style. Georgia O' Keeffe said she enjoyed painting seemingly insignificant things in large scale so their beauty cannot be ignored. I share her philosophy and will often paint subjects in large scale to showcase their magnificence to the viewer.

Oil or acrylic - I enjoy and am well versed in both. After a 25 year+ career in the arts industry, I still cannot decide on my favorite. In a sense I have to credit acrylics since it is the medium I am probably the most experienced in and the medium I started my art career with. Still, nothing beats the way color moves and vibrates with frequency in oil. That is not something other media can replicate as proper oil paint is made from living pigments and living oil, unlike other media. I also enjoy watercolor, gouache, and even egg tempera, if the Muse strikes.

Science matters, even in art. Not everything can be used together or on just any surface.  One of the reasons my mixed media work is desirable to collectors, is that I preemptively research and experiment with the properties of each medium and surface before incorporating it into my artistic process. This is important to collectors who hope to purchase legacy-worthy art, as some media will fade, crack, or yellow if not used or combined correctly on a proper surface. There are even methods to increase the archival properties of non-archival materials if an artist knows what they are doing.

My passion for mixed media art is increasing at rapid speed. I enjoy this approach to art-making as it is the most versatile. I feel I can get the best of all worlds: the richness of oils, the delicacy of drawing, the softness of pastels, the transparency of watercolor, and more.