Tim Oliver is a Landscape Architect and owner of a design/build landscape firm in Lubbock, Texas. He graduated with a Bachelors degree in landscape architecture in 1983 from Texas Tech University.
Tim holds Signature membership in the National Watercolor Society and the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies. He is an exhibiting member of the American Watercolor Society, American Impressionist Society, Outdoor Painters Society, Southwestern Watercolor Society, the GAS Painting Group and the West Texas Watercolor Society. Tim is also an associate member of the Transparent Watercolor Society of America, the, the American Plains Artists and Plein Air Painters of New Mexico.
Tim's paintings are collected both regionally and nationally and he has won numerous juried exhibition, invitational exhibition and plein air competition awards. He is a founding member and contributor to Urban Sketchers Lubbock and a past instructor and field painter at The Plein Air Convention and Expo. Tim is active in doing watercolor demos for watercolor societies across West Texas and his work has appeared on the cover of Watercolor Artist Magazine.
Tim has been fortunate to have studied with Iain Stewart and Joseph Zbukvic and has been influenced by many other living and deceased masters of the medium.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I was first introduced to watercolor in 1981 as a landscape architecture student at Texas Tech University. I had a friend in the architecture program who mesmerized me with his skill at rendering his illustrations. At the time, landscape architecture students were not taught watercolor as a rendering medium. Instead, all of our rendering was done with design markers on blueprint paper. I fell totally in love with the effects that he was achieving with watercolor. The transparency, the way the colors moved and blended, the dry-brush technique and the detail that he was able to achieve all came together to entrance me with the medium. My first attempt with a cheap scholastic watercolor set, a bad brush and thin typing paper left me frustrated and disillusioned. While that initial attraction to watercolor remained with me, it was not until 2009 that I found myself in a life situation that allowed me a new beginning with the medium.
As with all artists, my style is constantly evolving but presently I describe my style as "sloppy representationalism". I paint in a representational style with a "sketchy" quality to it. It seems to fit me. I'm passionate about interpreting and communicating the character and the emotion of places in my work. Watercolor, in a practiced hand, is the perfect medium for capturing the powerful emotion of a place. While I paint a variety of subjects, I'm most attracted to landscapes that stir passion within me in the moment. I'm always drawn to things western, rural, gritty and seemingly mundane or ordinary. Anything evocative of a 'time long passed by' will always capture my attention.
I love the authenticity, immediacy and raw honesty of painting finished watercolor works en plein air. This can be a challenge at times, but the rewards of plein air painting are numerous and immense.
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