I have been sketching things that interested me ever since I was in Elementary school. At Amherst College in 1950 I took a watercolor course and was hooked. Over the years, I painted whenever I could. I taught Engineering at Case-Western Reserve and The University of New Hampshire until 1991 when I retired and began painting much more often.
I had always wanted to live by the ocean and so in 1994 my wife and I moved to Depoe Bay Oregon. There, I joined the Artists' Studio Association and was its president for 6 years. I displayed my work in several galleries and sold paintings and prints at art shows.
In 2005, we moved to Centennial, Wyoming where I painted mountains and trees. After having problems with the altitude, we moved back to Oregon, settling in Corvallis.
I love the ocean and the restless interaction of the waves and the beaches. The Pacific Ocean is exhilarating because the waves are big and the storms are threatening. During storms, huge waves pound the beaches and rocks changing the shoreline quickly creating and destroying dunes, haystacks and arches. The manmade structures near the ocean are always in peril and seem puny compared to the mighty waves. I have painted towns, beaches, waves, cottages, arches, haystacks and light houses along the Pacific shoreline.
The watercolor medium allows me to convey the feeling of place at the ocean. The edges of the color can be hard or soft to convey the excitement of the restless waves. The transparent colors can impart the feeling of atmosphere that we see at the ocean.
I use photographs and sketches to collect information for a painting and always visit the site of a painting subject to get the feeling of place before I paint. I have hiked many of the beaches on the Oregon Coast looking for new painting subjects.
I try to make the painted scene more interesting for the viewer by often exaggerating the variation in value or color. Each painting is an adventure for me and so the act of creating the image is very satisfying. I hope the viewer catches some of my excitement when they see the result.
Usually, I plan a painting carefully with preliminary sketches and photographs finally sketching the shapes on the watercolor paper before I lay down the paint. In other cases, I just start to paint without a plan to see where the paint will take me. I love to paint with transparent watercolors. The creation of each new image is a rewarding experience that I like to repeat again and again.
Charles K Taft. July 12, 2007.