Half the job of any artist is finding what you like to paint. I don't know why but I'm drawn to images of western landscapes and old stuff left behind. Machines, buildings, signs, parts of small towns that once were thriving and offering promising futures but in a relatively short time have outlived their usefulness.
Telephone wires, ore carts, two lane highways, travel trailers, railroad tracks and windmills pumping water into rural tanks all tell of a time when innovation inspired people to change, to m0ve, to grow. Because America is such a young country, our history can often times be read in the stone foundations, roadside signs and abandoned cars and trucks in overgrown fields.
The world marches on and things once new and important are left behind to weather and slowly becomes part of a faded landscape unnoticed by the modern eye. There are lots of places like that along business loops on Route 66 and in the remote small towns where I like to drive and live.
I also enjoy creating contemporary landscapes by digitally "airbrushing" landscape scenes of the southwest. Since I enjoy traveling to out-of-the-way places that don't always have their own travel posters, I have found my niche by creating these imaginary posters for these very real destinations.
Posted in What Inspires.
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