I’ve always wanted to paint and so when I retired I started taking drawing and painting classes from Phil Sylvester at The Drawing Studio. When I first started painting I chose to copy the work of the Viennese expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka. I was attracted by his style, color choices and the intensity of emotion portrayed in his work, especially in his self portraits. His paintings are so complex that I copied only a part of his painting I found interesting and that I could complete in the 3 hours of a class session.

Later I started painting from photographs. I’m very drawn to the work of Vivian Maier who was a street photographer in Chicago in the 50’s and 60’s. I grew up in those years so that time span interests me, and like Kochoschka, Maier captured intense emotion in many of her subjects. Also I paint from her black and white photographs and It is intriguing to introduce color into the painting. Again, I mostly paint only the parts of her photographs that interest me.