An Artist I Admire, Tom Christopher

**Note (Monday, May 19, 2008) I'm posting this again to say that Maggie will have all the artists that we admire posted on Wednesday. Then you can check her post to see all the artists that were suggested by us. You may want to check back. :) Maggie has already reviewed several other artists for May, Hubert von Herkomer and Doug Dawson among others. You can pick up some pointers there.

I took up Maggie Stiefvater's challenge for today. Here is the challenge:

• Find one artist you admire. Safely Dead is easiest, but Not Safely Dead is fine as long as you secure permission from them to feature their work on your blog.
• Identify their strengths and the tricks and techniques you'd like to use in your painting
• Blog about it on Monday, May 19th
• Comment on this blog post with a link to your post.

(One artist, tania ,commented on that post and said she was calling the "Not Safely Dead Artists" the "Dangerously Alive Artists". Hmmmm.)

I am not a history buff and do not enjoy studying from books so I have never really studied art history .. and never had art in school.

I like paintings from life and outdoor paintings, therefore, I decided to post about a "Not Safely Dead", or as Tania says, "Dangerously Alive" artist I discovered on wetcanvas.com, Tom Christopher. He is in Iowa. Tom paints mostly in pastels (some oils) and posts in the Pastel, Landscape and Plein Air Forums. This is one of his latest posts in the Pastel Forum. If you sign up or are signed up to wetcanvas.com, you can find all the threads (posts and continuing conversations) that Tom has started in a pull down menu under his name at the beginning of this and his other posts. It is wonderful to see all of his paintings. I do admire this artist. Thank you, Tom, for sharing your photos of your paintings and your expertise in painting.

Pine Lake Park, Pastel 24 x 36 inches

copyright Artist Tom Christopher

Spring Along Highway 175
Pastel 24 x 36 inches, with frame

copyright Tom Christopher


Winter Light, pastel, 22x28 inches
This piece is the 2007, 4th place winner in the Pastel Journal 100 competition.
It will be featured in the Pastel Journal magazine in the Spring of 2008
copyright Tom Christopher, artist

I really like color and find that Tom uses color to great advantage. He makes great use of values and variation in temperature of colors. He has great design, using varying amounts of contrast as you see in this black and white version.

Winter Light, changed to black and white for this post.

copyright Tom Christopher, artist.

Tom experiments on different supports with different pastels or oil paint. He has a great touch with his pastels varying his strokes, creating hard and soft edges. The gesture in his trees, ground cover and water are very intriguing.

He generously shares this information with other artists. He paints and posts very often. I hope some of his technique and dedication rubs off on me. Check out his work and see if you don't find inspiration in his paintings as well.

I did do some research, I include this post from "Outdoor Painting", with history and links to some other famous and Safely Dead artists that you might find interesting or posted by other participants in this challenge. :)