Jim is beginning the
realization of a life-long dream. While
he studied art in college and worked various art related jobs early in his
working life, later career choices moved him away from actively pursuing art as
a life’s work. An early retirement
from corporate
America
has recently presented him with an opportunity
to begin to develop his career as an artist on a full-time basis.
Jim holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art and a Master’s degree in
Instructional Design. He was
creating art from the time he was very young. He has held career positions as an instructional illustrator, an
instructional systems designer, a company trainer, a human resource’s manager,
and a management/staff development manager. Throughout this time, Jim continued to paint and draw as an avocation.
In the mid 1980's he met and began to study with well-known central Ohio
watercolor artist Leland McClelland.
McClelland became the most important influence on the development of his skills,
his painting style, and his attitude about art overall, and watercolor in
particular. He also studied for a
time with Lancaster, Ohio’s, Marvin Triguba, re-igniting his
interest in oil painting and in colored pencil drawing.
Jim’s main medium is watercolor and his major artistic interest is and
has been for some time, painting landscapes and other scenes from everyday
life. He will, however, take on
any subject matter and works in oil and acrylics, pencil, ink and charcoal and
print making.
He describes himself as a realist who “finds paintings” everywhere he
looks. He says:
“I
love to create beautiful paintings based on the things I see around me every
day: the land, the people, natural structures, man-made structures, lights and
darks, colors and textures, lines and shapes, and the unique emotional responses
we each have to them.”
His
favorite painting locales at this time are the farms, fields and hills of the
south-central
Ohio
area, the coastal area and villages of Maine, the mountains of West Virginia
and the Chesapeake Bay
and Eastern Shore
areas of Maryland.
Jim is currently a member of the Lancaster Art Guild and The Central
Ohio Watercolor Society. He was
a past President of the Lancaster Active Artists. He has had many one-person shows and is a regular contributor to the
Lancaster Festival and to other shows in Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland.
Jim
is the owner of The Artmaster’s Apprentice, a complete art studio he
has recently built and outfitted. Jim
has also introduced three limited edition fine art prints, two of
which are part of his America Series and is developing other print editions.
Email:
gerkinart@ohiolinks.com
Recent
artistic works by James Gerkin:
 |
 |
 |
Barn Window 1
Watercolor |
Foretop
Watercolor |
Through the Covered Bridge
Watercolor |
Doorways - Best of Show
Painting "the Note"
