PAT CLAYTON

White River In Autumn .  24 x 30 .  Oil .  $2,950

Lighted From Within .  36 x 36 .  Oil .  $5,250

Cascade Hillside .  20 x 16 .  Oil .  $1,575

Shrubs by the River .  14 x 11  Oil .  $1,000 (SOLD)

Kauai Sunset .  12 x 24 .  OIl .  $1,450

Quiet River in Winter .  18 x 36 .  Oil .  $2,700

Tumbling .  24 x 18 .  Oil .  $1,875

Vine Maple   18 x 24 Oil  $1,875

Crashing Wave At Asilomar    18 x 36  Oil  $2,700 .  (SOLD)

Autumn Brilliance    36 x 24  Oil $3,550 .  (SOLD)

Going There    24 x 24  Oil  $2,200  (SOLD)

Rolling Waves At Sunset   24 x 36  Oil  $3,500  (SOLD)

Autumn Happiness   18 x 24  Oil  $1,875  (SOLD)

Artist's Statement:

I loved to draw and paint as a child and began doing pencil portraits (and teacher caricatures) as a teenager.  My first oil portrait was of my father prior to his death from cancer when I was 19. Painting in oils always fascinated me after hearing tales and seeing the works of my grandmother Helen Clayton, a farmer's wife who raised five boys, sewed extraordinary quilts and was a talented oil painter as well.  A treasured childhood memory is that of my father teaching me some of my grandmother's techniques such as enlarging images with a grid and how to create form by varying the values of a drawing.

 My career choice was impacted by my father's death and I became a physician, only returning to painting in 1997 when I began to take portrait, landscape and color theory classes at the Gage Academy of Fine Art.  After two years of trying to balance my infatuation with art with the demands of a community clinic physician's practice, I was fortunate enough to be able to follow my passion and I began to paint in earnest.  At the Academy I studied under Juliette Aristides, Mitch Albala, Tony Ryder, Charles Emerson and others.  At the Scottsdale Art School I studied with Peggy Kroll-Roberts, Kenn Backhaus and Kim English.  I learned to understand the power of the temperature of the light in a landscape and how this can be portrayed by the color of the underpainting at the Cape Cod School of Art. More recently I have studied with Ray Roberts and Matt Smith to increase my comfort with plein air painting.

I paint in styles varying from extremely traditional oil portraits to lively figurative works and light/temperature based plein-air landscapes. The impact of the first brush strokes and/or underpainting on the final outcome continues to fascinate me and the challenge to see beyond the obvious is a constant stimulus for growth. In the last year I have returned to painting with a palette knife. I love the bold clean color, the challenge of maximizing the effect of a single stroke and the texture that leaves an interpretation of its own when the work is finished.