Maier, Don

I have been painting since I was 10 years old, working initially in oils and later using watercolor and pastel. I have no favorite medium since I enjoy each for different reasons. I find that switching from one medium to another will help me stay fresh and not have any lengthy dry spells. I enjoy oils for their scale and formal presentation. Watercolors can be done in a very short time and they lend themselves well to working outside on location. Pastels have a quality of combining two aspects of oil and watercolor together, that being that you can use the paper color as a tone in the piece as in watercolor, and you can work light on dark as in oils, something that is impossible in watercolor. Also, the colors tend to be much brighter in pastel, which I like.

My idea of a good time is traveling to a beautiful natural location and painting. In my 50 plus years as an artist, I have traveled to all but three states and painted in nearly all of them. National parks are my most frequented locations, and the Navajo Tribal Parks of Arizona are my favorite. I love the rugged landscape of the west. I am from the east, where green is dominant. In the southwest, red is dominant. Green and red are opposites on the color wheel, so the contrast between east and west is what I enjoy most.

I now live in Marietta, GA and love the change of season and the mild winters here, allowing me to work outdoor year round. My wife, Suzie, also a fine artist, and I work out our home studio and enjoy the artistic community here in North Georgia. We have been members of Gallery 4463 since its founding.