Monarch Gallery Artist - Jim Gerkin
Watercolor - painting landscapes and other scenes from everyday life.
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.”
Recent Works of Jim Gerkin:
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Barn Window 1 |
Foretop |
Through the Covered Bridge |
