Canadian artist, Richard Delaney (born 1964), lives and works in Port Dover, Ontario, a fishing and vacation community situated on the north shore of Lake Erie. He is a retired art teacher who has 30 years of experience instructing high school, university, and mature students.
Since demonstrating artistic ability in childhood, Delaney has developed drawing and painting skills, primarily as a self-taught artist, but, also through study at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. He credits Brock University Professor, Murray Kropf, for encouraging him to use acrylic paints in addition to oils. He is now, equally adept with both mediums.
A career as a high school art teacher, immersed Delaney in creativity and helped to focus attention on painting, shaping ideas, and developing techniques & methodologies.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Delaney specializes in oil and acrylic paints to produce realistic works on canvas, masonite, and wood panel. He is inspired by nature, travel, and pop-culture. Portraiture, landscape, still life, birds, and the female nude figure are favorite genres. Subject matter that can be closely examined, such as pebbles, stones, bones, fossils, and human artifacts, is most interesting to him.
Delaney uses varying combinations of sketches, direct observation, photo references, and imagination to produce his paintings.
Delaney’s paintings usually begin with a sparse drawing on canvas or panel. Paint is usually applied quickly to establish the basic values, colors, and details, culminating in the finer elements, produced by adding thin layers of paint. Smooth blending, with minimal brush work is employed where necessary, but, the remaining brush work is often loose, relying on optical mixing to produce the sensation of blending, gradations, and details in the viewer’s eye.
Delaney learns much by studying the works of other artists. A few of the artists who inspire him are: Chuck Close, Jean-Leon Gerome, Robert Bateman, Salvador Dali, and Gerhard Richter.
