Ever present cell phones have allowed all to capture the minutia of their lives via pics and Shakey-hand movies. on occasion marvelous things have been captured. The more present negative is that people have forgotten how to look at paintings.

A “good” painting now must be in the real/hyper real style, being comparable to photos. It is not desirable to see the artist’s hand via brush strokes et al in a work.

I was in a museum which was having a Magritte  show. There were the by now all overly familiar images on display. People would walk up to the best works, striding off muttering in disappointment that they liked it more when they had seen it on a computer screen or postcard, in person it looked “too homemade” i.e. brushstrokes etc.

I am not afraid of having one of my drawings look like a drawing or a painting. With Matisse for example, no one is going to study anatomy off of one of his works. However, when he portrays a woman reclining on a couch, you know what you are looking at. Had you been alive at that time and in the neighborhood you might even recognize the woman. Most importantly, even after all these decades, the captured emotion still radiates out of the works.

I prefer to not use professional models. There’s often an artificiality to their poses. My main thing is emotion, this is what I want to give the viewer even more than admiring technique.

More often than not, I use people whom i know and that trust me. This allows for a realness which is beautiful. The realness of my paintings is not the technique but the natural poses and emotions.

Truth is Beauty 11×17 Watercolor on tan paper