I have this intense love for good design. It can be in art, architecture, landscape or nature. To me, a piece of artwork should reflect that design with light, rhythm, composition and form. It does not matter if it is an abstract work, a sculpture, or a piece of industrial designed machined metal. Good design is essential in art and it should be in everything we as human beings interact with, but that is not the reality of this world.

In my work I try to convey it through what I know. I am a painter of scenes, of feelings, of moments in time. Sometimes my work evokes sentimental feelings, but that is just the viewers memory and recollections kicking in. I am not setting out to trigger any emotion, in the paintings I do for myself I have my own reasons for producing what I do and not surprisingly the viewers feelings are not always the same as my intentions.

I do however love to bring the viewer into the scene. This is through a manipulation of perspective. light and shadow. I would like them to feel as though they can enter that world, walk through the trees or behind a building and feel there is something more to see.

My hobby, what I do for myself is a study of people. Mostly in drawings of pencil or ink and sometimes in oil. The shapes and contours, the lights and darks are fascinating and stimulating. Most of these however never see the light of day.

I produce my paintings sometimes with the smallest of inspirations. I once did a complete painting of a street scene, designing the houses in it, from the inspiration of a shadow cast on the wall of a garage. The shadow of the leaves of a tree on that garage was so lovely and it needed to be cast in a more elegant setting, so I provided one. I did another painting of a board walk, very simple, very sentimental with a picket fence. What intrigued me was the slats of the fence, the slats of the boardwalk and the shadows from the fence all going in their own direction. That was the inspiration.

Lately I have been taking more from actual settings than I used to. I still design the painting in the same way I always did. I always start with a thumbnail pencil sketch and enlarge that to the painting size. I then make a line drawing of that drawing and use that to transfer the design to a panel. I keep that line drawing and sometimes incorporate it into other works. The original pencil drawing is sometimes on scrap paper or sheets taped together, they are not meant to be an artwork on their own.

I was never concerned to documenting any scene just as it is. I usually change something and in many cases everything. So if you are looking for picture exactly how a scene is in reality, take a photograph or have me paint a commission piece, which I do on a regular basis. The paintings I do for myself and exhibit are my interpretation of a moment in my mind. I would be hypocritical to say never. Some places are just wonderful and in the hundreds of paintings I have done, I have painted a few fairly close to how to they are, but the photo realism of recording a particular place is not foremost concern for me.