  John D. Moulton
I wasn't lucky enough to have a formal education in art as I finished school in 1962 at fifteen years of age and was married by the age of eighteen. With a growing family to care for my art remained on the back-burner, but never far from sight. Somewhere amidst the turmoil of husbandry, fatherhood and work related ambition, my art continued to shine through. I drew in pencils, dabbled in watercolor, played with my airbrush, and recently overcame a life-long fear and took the plunge into oils. I always think of my pencils as my comfort zone, I adore them. When creating images such as 'Medieval Dream', the eye detail must come first, if they don't shine out, the rest of the work will be many hours of wasted time. My Moonlight Cameo's I think of as exercises in light. See the light, paint the shadows is my rule. To me, an artwork is defined as much by chosen subject, balance and framing as it is by any other factor. Nothing tests this theory more dramatically than the absolutes of pure black and white. Then there is that wonderful device, my air brush, used for nearly one hundred years by graphic artists and more recently by some of the best the fantasy art world has to offer. To date I have only put my water colors through it, but virtually any medium can be used, provided the head is cleaned regularly. It's an amazing tool that brings a delicacy to skin tones that is hard to equal with a brush. "The Rose" is a fine example. Last but not least, my new love of oils. Forty years it took me to open a starter kit bought for me back in 1967. I feared and revered oils in equal measure. On the one hand believing I could never master them and on the other adoring what they were capable of producing. Surely I would never be able to master the skills required to make the effort anything like worthwhile. How wrong I was, and what delight they have brought me. "Laetitia" was my fourth attempt in oils and I still look at her in disbelief, for the hope she offers as I work to improve. The message is as old as the hills: Go with your passion - dare to see where it can lead. Now retired from work-a-day life, I'm free
to let my pencils and brushes fly and what joy they bring, not
just to me, but it seems to others too. With local shows, sales
on the Internet and the offer of a gallery showing in Dallas,
USA, who knows where my new life may lead? Visit John Moulton's website: http://www.johndmoulton.com
Abstract Paintings by Ernest Williamson III
March's featured artist was Tracy Hall.
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My
art has always been my passion, and my appreciation for the female
form goes back way before my teens, when I would take a ballpoint
pen and map around every change of colour on the faces that adorned
my mother's 'Woman's Own' magazines. The contours fascinated
me, and those crystal clear eyes all but hypnotized me. Women,
horses and Red Indian heads were all I wanted to capture back
then, and it seemed it wasn't long before the Indians rode off
into the sunset on those horses and left me with my ladies. Pencil
was my favoured medium back then and remained so for a great
many years.
