My artistic passion is teaching painting, and painting landscapes with oil paint. I paint ‘En Plein Air’ which is to say ‘out-doors’. I am happy painting the landscape out in the heat with the sun in my eyes, with bugs, scorpions and tourists stopping by to say howdy. In 1980 my professional art career began as a commercial illustrator in Los Angeles. A few years later I moved to Arizona to head an art department at an agency in Phoenix. I was using watercolors and acrylic paints for illustration work. But sometime around 1987 I discovered oil paint and fell in love with it. The slower drying time, textures, and the ability to take it outdoors to paint hooked me. Then I began studying oil painting with many of today’s great painters, including T.A. Lawson, Bob Lemler, Kevin MacPherson, Laura Robb, Peggy Kroll, Ray Roberts, Len Schmiel and Matt Smith. Now, I’m grateful for the opportunity to teach at The Phoenix Center for the Arts, and for the opportunity to pass on my love of painting from nature and the techniques I have learned from so many great artists over the years.