I always knew I could draw.  I started learning about art at an early age when visiting my grandmother, I would look in her art books and sit at her easel.  She oil painted like a master and I loved her work.  As one of life's ironies, I never took any lessons from her. I pursued a degree in engineering; however somewhere in my God given DNA, there was something that pressed me towards practicing art.  My college notebooks are decorated with sketches of all types of subject matter and I have drawings and sketches that survived from high school.

In the fall of 2005, I took my first art class, Beginning Oil Painting, at the Glassel School of Art in Houston, Texas, as a way to spend time with my daughter.  I continued this formal training by eventually taking seven oil painting classes there.  In my limited sphere of knowledge, I felt I was progressing.  However, I realized I really knew nothing and needed to learn more from successful professional artists.  From online research, I found C. W Mundy.  Not knowing who he was, I took a workshop from him in 2013 and he completely opened my eyes to a whole new arena of art.  Since then, to further broaden my exposure and develop my skills, I have taken workshops from some of the best: V. Vaughan, Jeffrey C. Legg, Kathleen Dunphy, Stapleton Kearns and Joe Paquet. 

Even while taking classes at Glassel, I knew I only wanted to focus my learning on and practice the traditional representational style of oil painting.  

I plein air paint frequently.  I find this forces me to paint more often and I understand the benefits from painting directly from life rather than pictures.  Therefore, most of my pieces represents plein air.   

I am continuing to put in the mileage; the never ending pursuit of growth and improvement.