Gary Shepard

Artist Statement / Biography

I consider myself a "Concept Artist"...most of the time I paint what I visualize from whatever it takes to create a painting whether it's from photographs, imagination, on location or any other source. I'm especially drawn to dramatic lighting and depth especially in the early morning, afternoon and high noon backlighting. I really enjoy taking a subject or subjects and seeing what I can do with them to create something completely different.
My inspiration comes from hiking, skiing, and just being outdoors going for walks and drives when I will see something that will suddenly catch my eye.
I like to experiment with different techniques and tools along with various types of brushes, some of these things come from hardware stores.
Art is the one thing you can say that there are no rules, anything goes, whatever works...For me, by sticking with this rule I don't feel restricted to paint one certain way.

I was always drawing as far back as I can remember, then later in my late teens I took a course with the Washington School of Art where I progressed further in the basics of art. From there about 1976 I started painting mainly in watercolors with two professional artists, Arther Ouellette, an art teacher at the Lowell Vocational School and the other was a well known watercolorist, Jack Flynn, you can see him in two Watson Guptill books, one is called, 40 Watercolorists and how they work.

After a fews years, I started doing outdoor art shows and some mall shows where I became quite successful then later moved on to galleries throughout New England and some across the country.

I was born in Lowell, Ma. 1951 and after marriage moved to New Hampshire, I always loved it here and have no plans to live anywhere else.