Children
Oil Portraits

Teen
Oil Portraits

Family
Oil Portraits

Adult
Oil Portraits

Charcoal Drawings

Pet Portraits

Chroma Photography

Art Lessons

Frames Gallery

Procedure

Testimonials

TV Appearances

About the Artist

Studio

Artist Blog

Newsletters

Contact

Links

Interview

1. Did you draw any influence from your cousin Norman Rockwell?

My cousin Norman Rockwell was so inspiring because he painted a humanity that was warm, human and truthful. His paintings cheered a nation during many trying periods of world and national woes. Through his paintings he helped Americans to care about others and thus to remember that each of us can make a difference in each others' lives. I want to carry on that tradition in my own way.
By viewing my oil portraits, I want to enable people to see the best in others and to feel the best about themselves so that everyone creates good effects and gets along better.

2. How would you describe what you want people to know about the level of art experience they will enjoy?

I want my portraits to make people feel good when they look at them because they show people that are so alive that they give viewers an energy. Then, if the viewer knows the person I want the viewer to feel like smiling because they have made a contact with the essence of the person that they know and it makes them happy just to have that experience. To be reminded of what is best about the person in the portrait reminds them of the best in themselves too. Then their whole emotional tone level is better and they go off and are nicer and more understanding with the next people that they come in contact with. This has a ripple effect and these people are made to feel better so they treat others better and so on. This ripple starts all over again and again whenever someone views the portrait.

3. Would you have a 'mission statement'?

Yes. It's actually what I said earlier: By viewing my art, I want to enable people see the best in others and to feel the best about themselves so that everyone creates good effects and gets along better.

4. What do you draw from being Rockwell?

I have a heritage that I am proud of because there is a large Rockwell Family tree. The first Rockwells came over from England on a ship called the William & Mary, shortly after the Mayflower. They were a hard-working, upstanding family. There is today a "Rockwell Family Foundation" with the purpose to help descendants find their particular Rockwell family lineage. They have a website and a quarterly newsletter which includes excerpts from old family diaries about the lives that our ancestors led. They have a reunion each year in New England. It's an interesting feeling to know that I am connected to the routes of this nation through a particular documented family. Of course I have the most pride in just being an American for generations of ancestors that aren't necessarily documented and in being in the Family of Man on Earth, but there is a little additional completely frivolous pleasure in knowing that I am the 11th generation in America of a family that somehow has kept track of itself.

(End of Interview)

How to view museums

Since I'm an artist, you might be interested to hear how I go to museums:

—I've learned the best way when going to any museum is just to choose a very small part of it for any one visit. 
—I've learned that I don't like paintings before the Renaissance when they used to get the anatomy wrong such as in early Christian art—so I put my blinders on as I pass that so to save my attention units for what I want. 
—I've learned my favorite things to see and I just look for them, and also I see if there is any visiting special exhibit that is of interest, and that is it! If I look at too much it all goes to mush! I've even gone to a museum only to look at 3-4 paintings.... 
—Another way to make use of a museum is to look at only 1 or 2 aspects of a select amount of paintings. Examples: 
1) Look at how one or a school of artists handled edges, especially rounded ones such as the side of an arm or leg or face or skirt. These are usually softened so that the object looks like it is going around and is 3D. Sharper edges make things look flat and come forward. Horizons are typically softened so they go back.
2) Look at the artist's use of the color black. Does the artist even use black at all, or do very dark areas seem to have some tinge of color? 
3) Look at how skies are painted from one artist to another. 
4) Just choose something that interests you and look at how different artists handled that. You could do the same with sculpture or any art form.