Been making art nearly all my life (my first gallery exhibition was a string painting I did in Kindergarten)... Never pursued any fine art medium but drawing, though. Honed the talent with art classes & photo study throughout high school, then focused on charcoal portraits in my 20's. Though always a perfectionist, back then I didn't bother "finishing" an image with a background because I'd already exhausted myself - and, quite often, my interest in the piece - with an overly detailed main subject. With age comes patience, however, and I now focus just as much - if not more so - on what's behi...

Been making art nearly all my life (my first gallery exhibition was a string painting I did in Kindergarten)... Never pursued any fine art medium but drawing, though. Honed the talent with art classes & photo study throughout high school, then focused on charcoal portraits in my 20's. Though always a perfectionist, back then I didn't bother "finishing" an image with a background because I'd already exhausted myself - and, quite often, my interest in the piece - with an overly detailed main subject. With age comes patience, however, and I now focus just as much - if not more so - on what's behind that main subject as I do on it. The trick, still, is finding just the right balance of light and dark to make this rather limiting black & white medium as eye-catching and vibrant as possible.