6 of 34

|

Early one November morning, first frost, I came across this leaf that was lit from underneath by the newly risen sun. I made several photos without disturbing the frost patterns. I loaded the photo into the CopyIt app.on my iPad Pro to grid the image. The app also allows up to 20x views of the photo which is remarkably helpful in zooming in on detail. The grass took about 10 days to paint over a background of dioxazine purple and perylene green. Sometimes we miss the truly beautiful small things nature has presented as visual gifts.

My family owned a technical illustration firm so I spent part of my youth observing illustrators produce impossibly complicated projects for Fortune 500 clients. The advantage of my exposure to the profession was simply that I knew the seemingly impossible could be done and that it required an unbelievable work ethic to accomplish.I was not that interested in an illustration career, but I loved to paint. I was fortunate enough to be accepted to a BFA program and then to an MFA degree program in painting. I have had highly divergent influences. After teaching for several years for Ohio U I wrote the art degrees at Shawnee State University and became their first department chair before retiring from FT teaching in 2005. I moved to...