I came late to working with color. Before learning water color I had worked in black and white, predominately in India ink. My drawing and photography at that time required me to learn to see in black and white so when I began to work with color it was quite literally an eye opener for me. In 1980 I moved to Florida, bought some water colors, and began a career as a painter. I had been playing around with paintings of Florida all along and by 1992 the subject of my work had changed to ,landscapes. The year before moving to Florida my brother, who was going to school in Tampa, took me canoeing on the Weeki Wachee River. Half way up the river we turned a corner and came upon a few homes on a hillside overlooking the river. It was a beautiful day, a beautiful spot, and one of those rare moments. My brother turned to me and said, "Could you imagine living here?" At the time I couldn't, but upon moving to Florida I came to live at that very spot along the river for almost 18 years. The one great influence on my life and career has been the Weeki Wachee River. One of the prettiest places I've ever been was right out my back door. How could any artist in such a situation not become a Florida landscape painter?

I worked in water color for about 10 years. I had tried working with oil paint but with no luck at all. I happened to be in the Frick museum in New York City when I came upon the painting of Sir Thomas Moore by Holbein the Younger. It was just an exquisite piece. How could he have gotten so much detail using oil paint and mine always looked like a bad dream? In researching the painting I found that he hadn't. The detail was done in an under painting with egg tempera. What the heck was egg tempera? Egg tempera is a medieval paint made with the yolk of an egg that is great for detail, but you have to be of a certain temperament to use it. It has its limitations. Color is built up slowly with many small brush strokes; it deals in small bits of information. Large fields of color or a slow gradation from one color to another are not in its nature. I worked as an egg tempera painter for the next 5-6 years. Eventually I began using it to under paint and glaze layers of oil paint over it. This gave me a way to maximize the strengths of each medium and minimize their weaknesses. Over time I have tried to keep this approach to painting, but have experimented with using modern materials such as alkyds and acrylics. I've also embraced the digital revolution in a big way. The tools of the artist keep evolving. Quality improves, costs go down, and capabilities multiply, but it ends up where it has always ended up, with me alone late at night under the lights pecking away at a painting that I hope will become something eventually.