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The central section of this painting needs more leaves! This is a great time in the process to develop this area further. The leaves act as filler and also create lines of energy and interest in the overall composition. This makes the shapes and direction of the leaves important. You can compare this image to [...]

It's now time to add tropical flowers to the upper tier of the painting. I have begun to block in yellow for two different types of heliconia flowers, seen in the upper right and the upper left. The general colors of the flowers that I will paint today will be yellow, red and pink. I [...]

Here is a pic of what my working palate looks like. I mix my colors freely, utilizing the various tones that naturally combine on the palate as the paint is mixed. Color is very exciting and inspirational to artists. As young as age 15 I can remember being excited to put down the first blocks [...]

Now for the fun part—let's paint! STEP 1: I have chosen to begin this mural with the birds of paradise. They compose a large section of this mural and I'm going to use the leaves and dramatic shapes of this exotic South African flower to ground this piece. The image on the left shows my [...]

How did this concept materialize? To make a long story short, I worked with interior designers who liked my tropical flower paintings. They specified the size (roughly 9'x12') for this project. I then presented three different concepts that were mocked-up in Photoshop and one was chosen. I then refined the chosen concept in my studio [...]

Primer, also commonly referred to as Gesso, is fundamental to an oil painting. It provides the ground for the paint to stick to the surface. Priming a canvas requires several coats of thin layers of primer. What is an artist primer? For those of you who are unfamiliar with artist terms, Wikipedia explains the concept [...]