Goals Communicating to the viewer an awareness of the fragility of the rain forest and its wide variety of plants and animals in this environment is essential in my work. The motivation for these works of art comes from my personal experiences in the rainforests of Costa Rica and research about rainforests around the world. My painting goals are to create a painting technique where I combine the airbrushed images with the paintbrushed images for a striking realistic effect in a unique format. This format contains small animals which are enlarged on a scale not normally available to the viewer. The paintings begin with a drawing which serves as the base for the painted images.
Clear polymer is placed over the drawing to prevent smearing of the pencil marks.
Freehand airbrush creates a blurred effect in the backgrounds of the subject matter depicted in multiple views. Each fragment is then hand painted to emulate patterns of texture and light. Airbrush is used to model the edges to give a more realistic effect on the images. My paintings are, in this way, made up of layers of airbrush and paintbrush, with paintbrush marks becoming the dominant technique in the piece. These paintings are now evolving into more abstract canvases that still retain their representational qualities, yet contain abstract painterly qualities that take on a life of their own.