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© Copyright 1992, Jim Loy
I paint forests and mountains of Montana (see My Art Gallery). Most of my pictures are mostly made up. But I want them to remind you of Montana. Please don't tell me that they remind you of Idaho or Colorado.
I have painted with oils, acrylics, hard pastels, and now watercolors. I've found that I do poorly with acrylics, which puzzled me, since acrylics feel a lot like oils. This cause me to reevaluate my oil painting technique. I discovered that I enjoy painting on wet paint. Often, finishing an oil painting after the earlier layers have dried was extremely difficult. The pastels seem to offer a similar opportunity to mix colors right on the picture itself. I seem to be allergic to turpentine. So I've decided to specialize in watercolors.
I don't like highly detailed pictures. If the entire picture is highly detailed, then every part is competing with every other part, for the viewer's attention. This would suggest that the artist can direct the viewer's attention by drawing a fuzzy picture, with one part of the picture drawn in detail. This is especially useful in action pictures. My pictures are often totally blurry, which means that every part is competing with every other part for the viewer's attention. For some reason, that opposite extreme does not bother me much.
Most of my trees are straight, tall, evergreen trees. I like that kind of tree. A person once criticized one of my trees, saying that trees aren't that straight. He had never been to Montana. I suppose he figured that all those telephone poles were somehow straightened after the trees were cut down.
Every picture that I do is an experiment. But that does not mean that each picture is radically different from my other pictures. On the contrary, many are very similar. I think that it is too difficult to do something totally new. I don't think that a person can correct all of his/her flaws, or improve all of his/her skills at one time. I may draw a picture which has disappointing clouds. The next picture will probably be similar to other pictures that I have done, but with an attempt at better clouds. In fact, I would make that picture, and subsequent pictures, show lots of sky, perhaps so that I can show off my new-found skill for clouds.
I do not paint portraits, or wildlife, or fruit in a bowl. As I paint, I sometimes feel that I am discovering a new land. Are there no animals in my now land? I am slowly improving my landscapes, and do not want to be side-tracked with other subjects. Maybe someday I will either be satisfied or frustrated with my landscapes. Then I may move on to something else. But I do not like pictures with people in them. I wish Mona Lisa would move aside, and let us see the landscape.
I am mostly self-taught. But I have received some instruction from western artist Sheryl Bodily in Columbia Falls, MT and Eleanor Crank in Bozeman.