Kent Tomlinson

I have always been interested in art; the message, coloring and techniques, but had never actively pursued it. Always a spectator, never a participant. Four years ago, when I turned 50, I embraced my mid-life crisis and started taking art lessons with Alex Cogbill at his Local Color Studio Gallery in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We spent over a year together; meeting once a week with him teaching me color theory, value, perspective and techniques used with different mediums. Work, family and health demands eventually slowed my lessons, but not my desire to learn more and craft my work into an escape as it were; doing what I feel like I should have been doing most of my life – painting….participating.
My painting process is slow; building up layers and always thinking of our local, varied landscape or images captured from our trips to the UK. I never fully know where the painting will end up. But I know when it cannot go any further. My paintings lean to abstraction with only suggestions or hints and of an actual landscape setting. I enjoy taking the viewer to a destination they feel they have either been to or would want to go.
I use oils, acrylics, and mediums such as Cold Wax and Galkyd Gel. I paint by adding texture with multiple layers, and then work out any details by wiping, scratching and scraping to achieve unique surfaces and effects. I like my paintings to show hints of this chaos underneath the final, soothing layers.