My father graduated from the University of California with a Masters in Fine Art. He was an art instructor for over thirty years. He inspired me to learn to draw at an early age, about 5ive years old. He pushed, stressed the importants of understanding human anatomy. He felt the discipline it would take would be key to opening up my mind to all directions in art. The human body being so recognizable, so diverse from one subject to the next, it seemed that if I was to get sidetracked I might not come at all close to mastering it in a lifetime... I am basically a self taught artist. I had achieved eye hand coordination by the time I was eleven years old. My dream in life in part, is to master painting. To be able to express a feeling, message that is universal through art that all people will understand, relate too. In the hearts own image... I studied the anatomy of Michelangelo, the way his human figures gave feeling to his story by his complete control, manipulation, exaggeration of the human figure. I love the complexity of the Renaissance art. I spent countless hours, weeks, years studying the hard demanding art form of the Renaissance. To be able to control the figure to express feeling, to develop the patience it took for the strategies of design, the sense of timing in my application of pigment and individual mixes of my mediums to push that pigment. To understand color and its possibilities of illusion, the uses of extreme lights and darks to compensate for the flat plane. How to protect my white pigments, my gesso. And all the while, staying with the complete rules of permanency... I thought I had learned a little about art, when Rembrandt, Renoir, Van Dyke caught my eye. At this time I had achieved some sort of grasp on the human figure, but painting ? These guys's were awesome. I went into a think tank mode and tried to gather all the information I could about there approach to art. To mostly find that there was little written about them, just basic, allot of gaps. What I did learn was that you must know your materials so well that they become instinctive. To push your paint freely while being on auto-pilot as far as your materials are concerned. I learned the technique of collecting and holding light, to achieve jewel quality effects. How to use my gesso correctly, protecting it all the way to the finished painting, the use of modeling to further collect light and cast natural shadows. How to mix and control my mediums to push paint, fuse colors in numerous techniques in the same painting. The use of optical gray's. With up-most respect for the rules of permanancy. Rembrandt painted with such permanency in mind that his paintings didn't mature for sixty years, that he used removable varnishes that could be removed a thousand years later and re-varnished to keep the painting at 100% indefinitely... In all, I have ventured in all periods and styles of art in concentrated years that overlap one another to make up my forty-5ive years on the planet. I have listed these in; ( My Areas of Concentration...). My goal as an artist is to one day have one of my paintings make it to the Vatican, mostly to just have the honor of hanging out with some pretty cool dead artists... Peace...
Devon H.C. Crutcher
