The Life we Paint

I haven’t written here in a while… like years. Life is busy and for most of the time I’ve been absent I’ve been working multiple jobs doing art on the side. In November of 2023 I got laid off and my wife pushed me to go full time as an artist.

Its been a really crazy year and some months!

I’m finding my voice again. Rediscovering a love of oil painting and portraits in particular. I completed several word portraits that I’m really proud of but I am never really happy sitting in one place. I’m always trying to figure out where to go next, how to push my ideas further and make my work better.

Something I’ve wanted to do for several years is to bring oil paints into the word portraits. The problem is that I had not painted with oils in over ten years. So I took a class in the summer of 2024 to get myself re-acquainted.

I’ve been messing about doing sort of hybrid techniques, getting the textures and base down with acrylics and working with oils on top. Its not quite where I want to be and part of that is just getting better with oils.

So I figured I should push myself really hard and came up with this project called, “The Life we Paint'“ where I’m offering free oil paintings. You can click on the tab at the top of my website called Newsletter to read more about it.

Its been a lot of fun so far and also emotional… Today I did a portrait of someone’s child who passed away. I feel like this is why I’m here. I love making art for people. I love capturing people. I love having discussions with my paintings late into the night and asking them questions about who they are and what they are trying to be…

Yeah, I know, it sounds kinda crazy but you gotta be a little crazy to put yourself on a journey like this right?

My ultimate hope for this project is that I can help people. I think painting memorials is a nice start. But there is even more to this I think…

I’m 47 and I’ve never really seen the world this divided. I believe that sharing paintings of each of you as well as your stories is going to remind us all how similar we are. We work so hard and we have little time for relationships and its not healthy.

We all need money to live, but money should never be the goal of our lives, it should be a byproduct of our actual goals and dreams.

I really hope you join me on this journey, sign up for my newsletter, submit a photo, let me paint it and tell your story!