Don Trout Artist, Teacher, Demonstrator
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A LIFE-LONG LOVE AFFAIR WITH ART
During my preschool years I found a pencil and I started drawing. This was the
beginning of a life-long love affair with art. In grade school my notebook of drawings
outweighed my notebook of school work. The drawings were not masterpieces, just
tanks, planes and soldiers, battle scenes and other typical subjects of a young boy's
musings.
As I entered my teens, my mother gave me a set of watercolors. I was noticing other
things now, like the beauty of young girls, and the natural world around me. I morphed
into a painter. I soon had a watercolor entered in a school competition and won a
Saturday Scholarship to the Art Institute. As a typical youngster, drawing from plaster
casts didn't hold my attention; so the Art Institute effort didn't last long.
I continued to paint, however, and on entering the university decided on a fine art major.
Now disciplined art study was no longer a chore. In fact, I relished the classes. It was
here I discovered the love of oil paint and the feel of canvas under the brush. I enjoyed
the camaraderie of the small group of art majors. The curriculum, touching on every
medium, studying the old masters, and visits to the local art museum, brought the entire
world of art to life for me.
To this day I still feel a thrill laying a watercolor wash and seeing the affect of
transparent pigment on fine white watercolor paper; and the same satisfaction from
picking up a brush loaded with oil paint and caressing the surface of a canvas. Whether
my compositions are planned and followed through to completion or spontaneous and
started with random patterns and shapes until the surface textures tell me what is
needed to make a painting, I derive the same satisfaction.
My life wouldn't be complete if I didn't paint. I am still having a love affair with art
| The Artist |
| A detail from a Southwest style painting |
| Welcome to my website |
The guitarist is Darryl Denning playing:
Study in E Minor by Francisco Tarrega, a selection
from Darryl's CD: Classical Guitar Artistry.
Study in E Minor by Francisco Tarrega, a selection
from Darryl's CD: Classical Guitar Artistry.
| LATEST WORK |
| This series of paintings is drawn from the memory of trips through the American Southwest. The original inhabitants who lived here long ago left symbols of their presence etched in stone. These symbols are sometimes found in the most unlikely of places; in dried up washes that must have held a water supply, high up on a rock face above a cliff dwelling, or in a desert that seems uninhabitable today. |
| The small studies, measuring 6 1/2" x 10" each, are a great way to explore design and color concepts for future paintings. I worked on four at a time on taped off 15" x 22" sheets of watercolor paper. They are mixed media; watercolor, collaged rice papers, and acrylic on 140lb Windsor Newton watercolor paper. |
| "The Custodian" |
| "Look at That!" |
| These two paintings, 10" x 14" each, are mixed media; watercolor, collaged rice papers, and acrylic on 140lb Windsor Newton watercolor paper. |
| "Processional" Mixed media on Windsor Newton watercolor paper 140lb size 15" x 22" |
| "Raven's Perch" Watercolor on Windsor Newton watercolor paper 140lb size 15" x 22" |
| The shell has been a studio prop for a long time. A challenging subject, the three watercolor studies were painted in order to learn the unique geometry before I went on to the larger paintings. |
| "Beach Still Life #1" 20" x 11" |
| "Beach Still Life #3" 11" x 20" |
| These two paintings are watercolor and collaged rice papers on #300 Arches watercolor paper. I used familiar studio props. A bucket picked out of a mountain stream near Bishop, California, a hand me down shovel from a friend, the rocks from a beach somewhere, the weed-like shapes a product of my imagination. |