About Me
Dave McEwen
Dave McEwen is a representational artist who resides in Orange County, California. He focuses on landscapes, seascapes and horse and pet portraits. The Orange County area is rich in potential subjects to paint with its stunning ocean views and inland wilderness areas.
McEwen was born in Greeley, Colorado, but was raised in Ontario, California after his family relocated there when he was 6 years old.
Every artist gets the call to creativity. For some it comes early. For others it comes later in life. For McEwen his call to creativity early was through music. He started learning to play the trumpet in 4thgrade and continued pursuing music as a career through his first year in college, when he decided to go in a different direction.
After graduation McEwen spent 4 years in the Air Force and then decided to go to law school. During his years in the Air Force McEwen briefly tried his hand at oil painting, but set it aside to pursue a career as an attorney.
Throughout his adult life, McEwen was drawn to the early California and French Impressionists and has studied them in person and in the many books he has collected over the years.
It was not until his retirement after a 40-year career as an attorney that McEwen’s wife enrolled him in a local beginning acrylics class. This class rekindled his interest in painting.
However, at that point, he knew he needed to learn a lot more. He consulted many books on process and technique. He viewed many DVD’s and on-line classes, including over a number of on-line, live paint-a-longs with Johannes Vloothuis.
He took a workshop with Mark Kerchoff, which sparked his interest in plein air painting. He has since attended the Plein Air Convention in Santa Fe and San Francisco.
He has also been fortunate enough to participate in a number of additional workshops with many worldclass artists, including, Brian Blood, John Cosby, Rick Delanty, Debra Huse, Jim McVicker, Michael Obermeyer and others. Since 2020, he has been fortunate to be mentored by John Cosby which has taken his painting to new level.
As with music or sports, achieving any level of success at painting takes practice. Unless he is engaged in his other passions, golf, travel or spending time with family, McEwen tries to paint every day either in his garage studio or out doors.
He believes you need to paint the things that excite you. If you can’t get excited about a subject, it is unlikely you are going to be able to excite your viewers. His inspiration comes from a deep appreciation of the outdoors. He wants to capture those special moments.
Many of his paintings feature some of his favorite golf holes. He also enjoys seascapes and landscapes of the local area, as well as horse and pet portraits.
His goal with each painting is to capture a feeling of what attracted him to the scene in the first place. It can be the play of light and shadow or the feeling of the atmosphere of an early morning on the golf course.
McEwen has learned that you have to find a way to convey the feeling of what you are seeing. You must pull from the scene the inspiration necessary for motivation, but retain the license to alter, exaggerate and manipulate whatever may need to be done to communicate your artistic intent.
Dedicated to lifelong learning McEwen views every painting as a new challenge and an opportunity to improve. There are always areas that you can improve in. He has come to appreciate the overarching importance of value to a painting. Before he starts every painting he creates a small notan and a small value sketch using 3 or 4 values on his iPad.
Once he has the basic shapes or puzzle pieces in place and the scene is reading right, he can start the painting.
McEwen joined a local, regional art association where he has earned several awards and sold a few paintings.
McEwen understands that having joined the artistic journey late in life, he may never achieve all of his goals, but will continue to pursue it. For him it is the journey, the process of learning and creating that excites him.
Affiliations
LPAPA
SoCalPapa
California Art Club
California Plein Air Painters
National Oil & Acrylics Painters Society
San Clemente Art Association
949-233-6159
Commissions welcomed.
