When I moved to cincinnati and began classes at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, I found the variety and sizes of many trees to be extraordinary.  Cincinnati and the Academy opened my eyes and I began looking throughout the Ohio region, constantly exploring unusual and wonderful shapes and sizes, trying to include a tree into every scene that I painted.

Although I have been painting in the open air since graduation at the Art Academy in 1993, I joined the Ohio Plein Air Society in 2004 and have realized the true spirit of plein air, and still discovering more with each new work.  With plein air painting, I am able to search for the best way to describe what I see, so the viewer can feel what I saw as I painted the scene.  Painting in plein air is a lot like sitting on a branch of a tree - watching my surroundings unfold during the hours I paint, so absorbed in the process I become invisible to the world.  The process becomes so exhilarating, rewarding and frustrating, and exciting - focusing on changes of light and weather, working rapidly and intently, and exhausting upon completion.  Striving with each painting to complete alla prima (in one out door session) becomes the drive and the power to each work of art.

Through my paintings, I intend to recreate intrinsic emotions that are losts with our hectic lifestyles of today.  If I study a scene throught the day, watching the scene transform throughout the changing light, then I can capture nature's true majestic...to savor and share with the world.  It is for the viewer to stand back and experience, as if he or she were actually there.

It takes 79 trees to produce enough fresh air for each person to breath each day.

It takes 250 trees to abssorb the pollution from one school bus during one day.

It takes 250,000 trees to absorb the emissions from one jet plane during takeoff alone.   1

1  Information taken from Hamilton County Park District's Evergreen -March, April, 1994