Colour and Life

As a Self-taught artist, my style has been slowly developed and refined over nearly 20 years of working primarily with Prismacolor and other high quality colored pencils. Each piece is meticulously gridded, drawn, and colored in using layer after layer, usually between 8 and nearly 30 per square inch, of colors over the course of dozens and often times hundreds of hours. This pain staking practice is done to create a depth, vibrancy, and a flowing gradation that challenges traditional artistic shading and color theory practices.

When choosing colors and where to place them, I refer to the meanings of colors, all of which change dependent upon their expression of various tones and hues. This study and theory of colors is well defined within the Eastern Chakra system.

For nearly a decade, I studied the Chakra system in depth and regularly practiced it in conscious, meditative application. I came to understand that colors and their shades govern, stimulate, and express our various emotional centers, a.k.a. Chakras. The state, or balance, of these centers often have the most weighted influence on our conscious, everyday flowing thought patterns. Over time, I came to understand colors as their own comprehensive language as the “words” or encoding of Light, the most grand form of communication amidst the cosmos.

As I tediousy blend opposing colors into visual coherence, I remind myself that humans are capable of both terrestrial and universal symbiosis through Patience and Understanding; ultimately leading to the union of opposing forces. May all who view these works find inspiration, original thought, and the realization that, most often, what we view as opposites are in Truth simply pillars of the Beauteous Whole.

With these principles of color in mind, I design the compositional color schemes of my work to create a visual journey that can invoke the full spectrum of emotions. I believe each and every human being experiences very similar colors in life that we perceive as lessons of Hardship that breed Understanding and Wisdom, though always in ever-branching and unique ways, or hues. No two leaves ever fallen were identical.

Early Works 2009-2014

8 1/2 x 11"

Prismacolor Pencils