A Young Fisherman

I met this boy a couple years ago when I was staying at Lakeside. I was out on the dock when he caught a fish and I asked him if I could take a picture of him with it. It's not a large fish, probably a perch, but he didn't care. He reeled in several more while I watched the sun set over the lake.

Ask People to Pose

If you need good reference material you must ask people to pose. The worst thing they can do is refuse and you've lost nothing if that happens. If you're shy--get over it.

As a teenager, I was very shy and it was difficult for me to make eye contact with strangers, let alone speak to them. As I moved into my twenties and entered the corporate workplace this attitude had to disappear, especially when every job I had seemed to involve sales of one kind or another. My fear of strangers is long gone and that has come in handy when I am out photographing reference material.

Last year a boy was fishing on the dock while I was out painting one evening. He was pleased and somewhat flattered when I asked him to pose with his fishing pole in hand. When you take the time to explain why you want to take a picture and that the subject just might end up in a painting, most people are eager to help. I kept this painting generic enough that a viewer can't really tell who the model is, unless perhaps the viewer is his mother. :)

Last weekend I took hundreds of invaluable reference photos. I used my charm, my wit and this well-rehearsed question: "Would you mind posing for a photograph? I'm an artist and I would love to put you into one of my paintings?" I was at a fitness exposition, surrounded by thousands of interesting individuals and my utter lack of shyness allowed me to take dozens of reference photographs.

Dockside Fisherman

Impressionism

Sometimes I will take a complicated image and reduce it down to a few strokes and/or colors to get to the "essence" of the meaning. My friend took this picture of these boys when we were painting at a lake last year. One boy had just caught a fish and she managed to capture a note of jealousy on his companion's face when she took the picture. It is priceless! She loaned me the picture and instead of doing a full size painting I decided to create an impressionistic 'snapshot' of the moment and keep the focus on what I think makes the image so great: emotion.

6 x 8" oil on canvas

Fishing: It's Not for Everyone

To be honest, I have never really gotten into fishing. The few times I have tried it I have been grossed out by the worms and unable to even attach one to my hook. When I did get a fish on the line it almost always managed to escape. If I had to live on what I caught from the lake or the river I woudl starve.
Young boys, however, are naturals at this sport. I watched this child repeatedly toss his stick into the water and tease the fish with his bait. He didn't seem to care that he wasn't catching anything or that he didn't have a fancy rod and reel. He was engrossed in the idea of fishing.

When we become adults we are too often driven by the results. How far can I throw that ball? How many minutes will it take to run that 5K? If I buy that new program will I be able to get my work done quicker? When I began painting I had to lose that attitude. The paintings were not going to be perfect every time. Many of them would have to be redone or tossed if I wanted them to resemble reality. I soon became intrigued by the process, just as the boy is more interested in the action of fishing. Sure, he wants to catch a fish, but it's OK if he doesn't. And yes, I want my painting to be awesome, but it's OK if I just had a good time creating it.

Fishing

20" x 16"

SOLD

Fishing at Cold Creek

A colorful impressionistic oil painting I painted last week. Very unlike my usual style, this piece is all about color and how far I could push the boundaries to make that river glow.