ABOUT
Hi, I am Lex!
Being born in Germany, and having a German mother and an American father, I grew up bilingual and in two different cultures. Since I can remember, I love to draw with colored pencils and paintbrushes. My favorite childhood occupation grew so strong during my teenager years that it became my passion, and I attended art school while still in high school. While learning different techniques and participating in countless sketching-sessions of figure drawing, my interest in portrait painting intensified. As a result my skill set in human face anatomy sketches grew steadily. So it happened increasingly that family and friends commissioned me to draw portrait paintings and shortly after, through word-of-mouth, I had my first clients while still in High School.
After High School, I had the opportunity to work for the city theatre in Heilbronn (Germany) as a scene painter, painting huge backdrops & murals for numerous shows. This real-world experience taught me a lot about color, and composition as well as the traditional way of mixing colors??? with actual powder pigment colors, white paint, water and bonding agent.
Later in college, while earning my bachelor degree in graphic design, I learned how to use drawing tablets and soon fell in love with it and all its advantages. To me, my computer screen is now a blank canvas and my brush is a digital pen. The tools may be different, but each stroke is still handmade and my artist intuition is still the same.
The biggest compliment to me is, thinking my paintings are photos when briefly looking at them.
HOW I DO THINGS
Based on my love to paint with acrylics and watercolors, I developed a specific drawing technique that enables me to imitate certain techniques I learned in art school. It allows me to use my drawing tablet intuitively, like the way that I would with acrylics.
Sketching &
Color Blocking
They are the foundation of composing any painting. It’s essential and also a check, to see if the proportions are right. Blocking in the basic colors of the painting helps to determine the mood of the artwork.
Values
They play multiple important roles in any painting! They help to understand, if an object has volume or if it’s flat. Describing visually which texture each object has and from where and with what intensity the light source is gleaming.
Defining
This is the most time-consuming process! Creating nice transitions of the edges (where needed), refining and adding more values and details, the painting finally takes form. I like to describe this process as ‘modeling’, because it’s a constant back and forth until the object is right.
Finalizing & Detailing
This is what makes the painting ‘pop' and draws the viewer’s eye to certain focus points. In this phase of the painting process, I like to re-evaluate every detail. I also start to add tiny elements to give the painting a more realistic look.
Mail Address: 591 W. Plaza Circle #2115 · Litchfield Park, AZ 85340