Christopher Cook Art

www.ArtPal.com/cwcook1000

I'm an American painter of fine art who was inspired by PBS television personality and master painter, the late Bob Ross. I had participated in a few art contests as a child in Southeast Georgia. I began to take art more seriously as an adult after having traveled the world and much of the U.S. At age seventeen I joined the U.S. Navy, which afforded me the opportunity to travel the world and visit some really cool places, such as Bergen, Norway, Hamburg, Germany, The Netherlands, Belfast, Ireland, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the U.S. Virgin Islands. After my stint in the Navy, I still had the travel bug in me.

I spent the next few years out west in California, Arizona, and Texas. One day while driving through the Arizona desert I was fascinated with all the natural beauty surrounding me: the mountains, winding rivers, Saguaro cacti, etc., . I happened to have some drawing materials in the trunk of the car, so I sat down in the desert sand and proceeded to sketch a few mountain scenes, I believe that experience ignited a fire inside my spirit. I now longed to be creative and my right brain suddenly needed some form of expression.
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The next day I patronized a local arts & craft store where I purchased watercolor materials. Over the next few weeks and months I painted dozens of pieces en plein air, mostly of the desert, flowers, animals, scorpions, sunsets, mountains, rivers, waterfalls and monsoons. The important thing was that I had discovered something positive and meaningful to focus my thoughts on. it was called art, and it brought me closer to nature. To quote the great Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, I feel alive when I am painting. I could certainly relate to that famous quote because it seemed that whenever I was enamored to the canvas, my creative juices began to flow.

Life was now more of a journey and exploration of nature and beauty for me. Art simply provided a vehicle of expression, a sense of self-worth, and hope for the future.

Over the years I have sold and given away numerous pieces from LA. to Miami. I always strive to add a lot of color to my paintings and capture as much detail as possible to make my paintings appear as realistic as possible. As far as being influenced by the masters, I would say that Pierre Auguste Renoir was my favorite of all the great impressionists because of his amazing characters, subjects, and depictions of the human form.

If you were to take away something from my story, I suppose you could say that we have choices in life, to focus on the good rather than the bad, the uplifting over the depressing, the beauty versus the unpleasant, and the positive instead of the negative. Art keeps me positive. Its beauty and creativity are uplifting, and that makes it a good thing. Being able to create paintings gives me a reason to get up every day and keep moving and breathing. My goal is to create something of value and beauty that can be appreciated and passed down through the generations. Hopefully, the acquisition of my artwork can achieve that purpose.

That stated, without further ado, I'll just keep on painting. Maybe I'll learn
something along the way. God Bless