Dale Landrum
The great French painter Delacroix wrote that “first… a painting must be… a feast for the eyes.” I take this view as a guide for my subject matter, and this often leads me to a wide variety of places that usually offer more colorful material to work with. Fall color trips around the country and excursions to certain areas of the American Southwest are some of my favorite subjects for oil painting, and I also look to my garden, and marine subjects with boats or seascapes, while floral still lifes add to studio work when I am not working on landscapes out of doors. But getting out in the open air is where I find most of my zeal for painting-I always feel transformed by it, and in a world where the natural, or pristine landscape is vanishing, my time spent out and about also provides a spiritual retreat that is critical for successful painting.
Before I took up oil painting on a full-time basis in 2004, I worked for much of the year out-of-doors as a botanist. As a painter I am largely self-taught; but this is somewhat misleading because of the wide range of influences and time I spent working around other artists. While working as a botanist in the mid-nineteen eighties in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area– my “beginnings”–I started copying works by famous painters that represented certain periods and “schools”. Simultaneously I was learning to paint on location exclusively, or “plein air” as the phrase is now well known and more popular than ever perhaps. The effect of natural light, which I consider a crucial element in creating successful paintings, is the most important thing that plein air painting taught me. I also joined other artists in regular life drawing group sessions, further developing drawing skills. Getting involved as much as possible with more experienced artists, and setting up a studio in an artistic community in northern California rounded out my creative environment and direction. In the course of my painterly journey I have been selected into many national and regional juried exhibitions with the Oil Painters of America, The American Impressionist Society, and the National Oil and Acrylic painters Society..
Visit the artist’s website: landrumartwork.com