Meet Artist R. Taylor Cullar

My growth as an artist started when I was a child.  I enjoyed copying pictures from ads in magazines using washable paints as well as molding and painting plaster of Paris figurines.  My earliest formal instruction in art started at age 25 at the University of Florida in preliminary art courses required for entry into a degree program in Landscape Architecture.  Those courses included drafting, design, freehand drawing, figure drawing and watercolor painting.

 

After graduating with a degree in Landscape Architecture I worked as a landscape designer for about 3 years preparing blueprints for landscape plantings.  I did very little as a creative artist until I retired and began to paint with a group of other retirees in our 55+ community in Stafford County, Virginia.  There I began painting with watercolors and eventually became more comfortable using acrylics.

 

My interest in photography began in a high school enhancement activity for students interested in photography.  After digital cameras became popular and I began to travel more frequently I became interested in taking better pictures.  More recently, design principals being basically the same in all visual creations, my painting and photography have worked together to complement each other.  Many of my paintings are based on my photographs.  Also, I use photography as an artistic medium.  I modify colors, crop, remove objects and backgrounds, and combine multiple photographic images to create complex digital compositions.

 

As an artist I believe in experimentation and variety.  My works include representational, impressionistic, fictional reality as well as fantasy and abstract pieces.  My goal as a visual artist is to produce works that are attractive, unique, and interesting to a wide variety of people as well as to myself.  With so many people creating and viewing art I feel challenged to achieve that goal.  In my effort to produce creative and interesting works I travel frequently and visit art galleries, art museums, gardens, parks, and other interesting sites to collect ideas and photographs from which to work.  But the fun and satisfaction are mostly in the struggle and challenge of the creating process, but also in finding ways to share my works with other people.