People ask me why I still paint in oil. Acrylic is faster. Acrylic is cheaper. Acrylic dries while you are still holding the brush. All of that is true — and for me, all of that is exactly the problem. I paint in oil because oil gives a painting a body. It has texture, depth, and a presence you can feel from across the room, before you even know what you are looking at.
Oil stays alive while you work it
Oil paint dries slowly. That is not a flaw; that is the whole gift. When I lay down a blue in the morning, it is still soft in the afternoon. I can push it, blend it, scrape it back, and lay gold over it while the colors are still talking to each other. A sky can melt into water. A face can come out of darkness gradually, the way a real face comes out of shadow in a room.
Acrylic, in my experience, decides too fast. Once it is down, it is down. Oil lets me change my mind, and some of my best decisions have come from changing my mind — from a color I almost covered up becoming the heart of the painting.
Texture you can see — and almost touch
Stand close to one of my paintings and you will see the paint itself. Thick passages where the brush dragged. Thin glazes where the color underneath glows through. Edges that catch the light at one time of day and go quiet at another.
That is impasto and layering, and oil does it like nothing else. On Three Fishes, my 48 by 48 inch oil on wood, the golden fish carry real ridges of paint. Walk past the painting in morning light and the fish seem to move, because the light is moving across actual texture, not a flat picture of texture. A print cannot do that. A flat medium fights to do that. Oil was born to do that.
Depth that took centuries to learn
The old masters painted in oil for a reason. Layer over layer — dark underpainting, color, then transparent glazes — oil lets light travel into the painting and back out again. That is why an oil painting has that deep, warm glow people struggle to describe. It is not just color sitting on a surface. It is light that went in and came back changed.
I use this in Blue Dream and Blue Staircase, where the blues are built in layers so they feel deep instead of flat, like water or a stairway going down into a dream. And I use it the opposite way in Desert Sun, where warm layers build the heat up until the surface almost radiates.
Oil ages with dignity
An oil painting, cared for properly, lasts for centuries. Museums are full of oils that are four and five hundred years old and still glowing. When I sign a painting, I am not making something for a season. I am making the one object in your home that your grandchildren could hang in theirs.
That long life is part of why every painting of mine is a single original, never printed. The object itself — the real paint, the real texture — is the work. You cannot reproduce the feeling of standing in front of it, and I do not pretend otherwise.
In Golden Face, at 24 by 30 inches, the gold is built up so the light in the face is literal light, catching the room. Visitors reach toward it — then stop themselves, smiling. That small moment, when a hand almost touches the painting, is what oil can do. It makes art physical again.
A living artist, a living medium
I am a living artist, painting now, in Riverside, California, for the homes and lives of people living now. Oil fits how I think about that. It is slow, honest, and patient. It rewards the time you give it — in my studio, and on your wall, where it will keep changing quietly with the light of your days.
If you have only ever seen my work on a screen, I understand — but I will tell you plainly: the screen is the invitation, not the painting. Come stand in front of the real thing if you can. Feel the texture. That is why I paint in oil.
Looking for the right piece for your wall? Write to me at [email protected] — tell me about your room and I will help you find the painting that belongs there, and tell you the story behind it.