Portfolio of Works

Birds are the "people" in my paintings.  They are a ubiquitous feature of the landscape and, as a birder,  a large part of my experience of nature.  As a small part of a landscape they provide focus, scale, and movement.  They are also beautiful in and of themselves, occasionally taking center-stage.  Capturing the subtle nuances of form, color, and character of birds is a never-ending challenge and inspiration.

This collection includes landscapes created in the studio, often based on plein-air studies.  Occasionally my feeling for a particular location or composition calls for a larger treatment,  a more immersive visual experience.  My intent is always to communicate that feeling of wonder and discovery that contemplation of nature so readily evokes.

My first landscape paintings, from my early teens, were plein-air paintings even though I had never heard the term.  It always seemed to me that the most natural way to paint was from life.  I've enjoyed the recent surge of interest in the practice of "plein-air" painting, and because of their spontaneous creation and small size, they make up the largest proportion of my finished work.  I'm not religious about finishing a painting entirely in situ; most of my plein-air paintings begin with an hour or two in the field, with another session in the studio to adjust values, refine edges,  and sometimes remove bugs!

Perhaps my proudest achievements to date are in the area of museum exhibition.  During the ten years that I worked at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, I was fortunate to have received the guidance of some of the last remaining artists from the "golden age" of diorama background painting, and to have inherited a vast sum of collective experience.  I have continued to create and restore dioramas, as well as murals, for museums on a freelance basis.

My earliest artistic influences were illustrators such as N.C. Wyeth and Charles R. Knight, and I still have a great admiration for fine illustration.  Indeed I make little distiction between fine art and illustration, as the principles of good picture-making are common to both.  I enjoy the challenge commissioned projects present, especially when it involves Natural History.

I never leave home without a sketchbook.  In it I record my observations, work out ideas, and occasionally create a finished piece.  When I was a beginning birder, I drew birds as a way of memorizing their field-marks, and as I developed my field skills, the sketches became a way to capture character and gesture.  Birds rarely stay still, so as a respite from the challenges of drawing such elusive subjects, I find relaxation in studying the anatomy of trees, whose form captures movement measured in decades.  On rare occasions, I add color to my sketches.  Here you will find a sampling of my sketchbook drawings.