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 |
| "Above it all" My travel ability temporarily limited, I am drawing from my own experiences to create a fictional scene that I hope conveys what I have seen and felt when able to be out in the high country. Painting is mixed media; watercolor, acrylic, and rice paper collage size 19 x 24" |
| "New Beginnings" In my imagination, out of the decaying dead wood, new growth is starting. The colorful shapes could be flowers although no effort was made to depict a particular species. Painting is mixed media, acrylic and collaged rice papers on a masonite panel size 24" x 28" |
| USING PHOTOSHOP TO COMPOSE A PAINTING |
| The Bodie store |
| This truck was there the last time we visited Bodie. It seemed too clean and colorful for my painting. |
| Truck (somewhat rustier) and building combined. Composite photos of the hillside and sky added and the color adjusted to suit the scene. |
| From the above photo composition, the scene was rendered in line in Photoshop and printed on glossy photo paper |
| A small painted comprehensive sketch, acrylic paint added on top of the glossy line print to test some additional color ideas and rework the patterns in the foreground. Size 8 1/2" x 11" |
| Christmas Card 2009 |
| I thought it would be an interesting project to turn my summer painting "Eternal Race" into a winter one using Photoshop. Some elements had to be "cut and pasted" into slightly different positions in order to fit the card format. |
