Watching the Parade and taking notes,that's all.

I have been very fortunate to have been able to attend painting workshops all over the world.  During my many Open Studio experiences here in San Francisco one of the questions asked was "Why not stay here and capture this beautiful city".  As a commercial artist working with the real estate community I have actually drawn and or painted over 8,000 of San Francisco's most beutiful homes.  I am currently photographing many of the same homes and agree that this is indeed an incredible place to live and paint.  I am now looking to combine my passion for drawing and watercolor painting with my love for San Francisco,  my home now for 38 years.

My paintings are inspired by memory of places I have been, loved, lived and worked. These memories are enhanced by interpretation, impression and emotion and are not visual recordings. They attempt to capture a "sense of place" rather than specific details. In addition to solo shows on the Mendocino coast, in Mill Valley, Sacramento and San Francisco, my work is represented in private collections both in the United States and Europe. I have been the recipient of several awards. One painting was selected for inclusion in a group exhibit at the M.H. de Young Museum in San Francisco

I have fallen in love with wood, and the carving that it invites. It is the inspiration for my carved paintings that explore the textural richness and variety of nature. Through carving I can investigate nature’s formal structures and wild beauty, and through painted color I can lure the eye with highly focused monochromatic color.

My work is influenced by Japanese art and by the California Arts and Crafts movement, with their shared insistence on grace and compositional beauty.

The poetic impulse is also crucial, and the poet Pablo Neruda offers a telling insight:

“Blossom and water and wheat kernel share one precious consistency: the sumptuous appeal of the tactile.”

It is this surprising and endlessly varied tactility that moves me to create this artwork.

Jim Winters has lived in San Francisco since 1992. He works out of his Islais Creek studio in Bayview. Winters holds a BFA from Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia where he graduated in 1988. He now works in a variety of media. He is inspired by portrait painting and photography, vintage graphics and ephemera, textile and wallpaper patterns, film stills.

Peter Howells newest work,

I work with stone, ink, glass, paper, and more from my Revere Street studio in San Francisco.

I welcome exhibit enquiries, and studio visitors by appointment.