Leslie McCarron

For me, painting is all about color. Color is what motivates me, excites me and distracts me, it always has. Color is the first thing that inspires me to create a painting, the first thing to catch my eye about a subject, be it a still life or landscape. Color will sustain me throughout the painting process as I work through composition, color harmony, values, shapes, and balance.​

In addition to color, the beauty and wildness of nature calls to me with endless possibilities of ideas to paint. All of my paintings include some aspect of our natural world as I paint to convey movement, personality, excitement and joy. Even though I am trained in several different art mediums, I prefer to paint using oil. I love the intimacy of oil paint as it takes me on a journey with its thick creamy texture and versatility. Oil allows me to use it thickly with a pallet knife or brush, or to apply it thinly in a glaze.

I’m happiest when I find myself lost in a painting as I interpret what I see or what I imagine, into what it means to me. I am less interested in exact realism, preferring instead to try and capture how my subject makes me feel. After all, at the end of the day, I believe all art is about how it touches a part of us in unexpected ways.