Dennis Dickerson

I’ve worked in commercial art and graphics my entire adult life. I’ve never taken an art or design class, yet it’s all I’ve ever done. But during my entire career I really wanted to be painting wildlife and nature scenes; creating my vision of the natural world. I recently left commercial art and design to pursue my own fine art. I apply the lessons I’ve learned about color, composition and mood in the commercial world to my paintings.

I never learned how to use brushes and paint. So I “paint” in the only medium I know – digital. For me, the creative process works best when I have a pencil in hand. To start, I work and rework an image on paper until I get it right. Only then do I scan my drawing and start to apply color. I use the painting tools in Photoshop. No photographic images are used in my work except as reference materials. Oddly enough, even though digital is my medium, I think computers quash creativity, while pencils open up ideas.

My goal is to do work that the average person can afford, yet have it be special, rare and collectible. I spend at least 100 hours on my digital paintings, often much more. So I make relatively inexpensive signed and numbered limited edtition prints of my paintings rather than ridiculously expensive originals. It’s the only possible fit for me, since digital is the only medium I know.