Artist Statement

In my watercolors, I strive for a painterly yet realistic rendition of my subjects, hoping to make use of the transparent beauty of watercolors as they are applied to the surface of paper using the flow of water.  Reserving the white of the paper to represent the lightest values of the subject requires careful planning. I spend much time manipulating the shapes and light and dark values in small pre studies, until I feel I have achieved a most expressive composition. Then, after making a careful outline drawing of all of the elements of the picture on fine watercolor paper, I apply paint, with respect for how the pigments, carried by water,  work together with each other and the surface of the paper.

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I have studied the work of many paintings and artist teachers, having painted watercolors since I was in high school. I first became inspired by my grandfather, watercolor artist Leslie Austin Hartley, who was born and raised in England where he learned to paint watercolor landscapes there while he was at a boys boarding school. Although my formal training was in music at the University of Michigan, I decided to make my avocation of painting a profession and I began attending art festivals nationwide with my watercolors. To acquire further knowledge, I attended workshops by Sondra Freckleton, Nita Engle and Tom Lynch as well as studying the books of John Pike, Daniel Chard, Ted Kautsky, Edgar Whitney and David Friend, to name a few, and the paintings of Robert Cottingham, Neill Welliver, Fairfield Porter and Charles Sheeler.  Growing up in the Catskills of New York, and now in the Ann Arbor Michigan area, I developed an eye for our unique American landscape and seek to capture the rich, colorful, impressive, complex and intriguing views of the common subjects all around us.

Source: www.scotthartleywatercolors.com