Tom is a signature member and past-president of the
Ohio Watercolor Society and currently serves in various roles including membership registrar and webmaster. Previously, he received a PhD from Stanford University and was a chemistry professor for 30 years at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, where he authored and published more than 60 research papers and two textbooks. Tom was named an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow, 1985-87.
After retirement from the university in 2007, Tom moved to Ohio to pursue watercolor painting, a childhood passion instilled by watercolorist Charlotte Wilson in Havertown, PA and rekindled during the past 20 years in more than two-dozen workshops with prominent watercolorists.
In 2018, Tom received membership in the
Whiskey Painters of America (WPA). He is also an associate member of the American Watercolor Society and a lifetime member of the
Toledo Artists’ Club. He served as President of the TAC from 2009 through 2013.
In 2023, Tom was awarded signature membership in the Watercolor USA Honor Society.
I like to paint commonplace scenes that combine my observations, experiences, feelings and imagination. Working from sketches made on site or from an assortment of photo references, I might paint several versions of a scene until I am satisfied with the result.
For subject matter, I am attracted to structures and other inanimate objects and am often intrigued by how these have been integrated or sometimes conflict with natural surroundings. Natural landscapes are also appealing, especially those in the American West and in costal regions throughout the world. Although my finished paintings have a realistic or impressionistic semblance, the intent of my creative process is not simply to copy or duplicate a scene or subject.
I most enjoy painting on Yupo, a synthetic paper made of polypropylene, which I find suits my artistic temperament. The arbitrary and sometimes uncontrolled mixing of paint gives texture and liveliness to certain areas of a painting on Yupo, yet the application of paint in a controlled fashion can be achieved to create hard edges and luminous hues by overlapping layers of color washes.
The ability to remove paint and restore the original white surface by wiping with a wet cloth or brush is another appeal of painting on Yupo. Some white areas in my paintings exist because they were left unpainted, but wiping off paint in other places creates textures and highlights or accentuates specific edges.