Backgrounder

Randy Loubier

Amherst, NH 603-672-8062

www.pinktomatoes.com

I spent most of my life as an accountant.

But in 2000 when attending an event for my favorite charity, Angel Flight, I was suddenly struck with the need to create a particular image for the President of Angel Flight.

I had never painted, had never drawn, but a week later I found myself coming home with some inexpensive acrylic paints, a brush, a palette knife, a couple canvases and a burning desire.

I tried painting the image I had in my mind, but it was miserable. Flat, boring, lifeless. I was really disturbed. Maybe I really was just an accountant. Maybe it was silly to think I could act with my right brain after 42 years of being left brained. Maybe….

I decided to shelve the original image and try something else. A simple sunset over a pond. I liked it! Better yet, my wife liked it. And within minutes of finishing it she rushed me out to Expression’s Gallery to get it framed. No thinking, no hesitating, It was just the push I needed.

Very quickly I continued to produce works, finding something inside of me that didn’t want to think—only move paint on a canvas. Color and texture became my passion. A canvas couldn’t hold too much paint.

A few months later, I received my first art instruction. I spent a couple days with my wife’s uncle, a 70 year old retired artist and art teacher, Richard Hill Chase. He taught me one thing he said I needed—how to use a color wheel. “If you mix your colors right, your colors will all blend together on the canvas. You must make your colors sing, Randy.”

Color continues to be my passion. I feel the color, very deeply. The accountant in me that knows a tree is not red goes somewhere else when I paint. Color becomes an expression; a description of the scene if we could see it with our heart instead of our eyes. And the palette knife has become my friend. I crave the feel of the butter soft texture of the oils as I push them around with the knife.

I still have yet to produce that original image that fired my intense desire to paint. One day, it will come. In the meantime, I hope you find the love and passion in my paintings adding to the unique feel of your own home.