Thomas Merriam
artist | illustrator | woodcarver

Watercolor has been a part of me as long as I can remember. I seldom get hung up on using the medium. Pushing water and color only becomes a challange when the idea of what I’m painting fades.

The biggest obstacle is usually money. if I’m painting only to make a buck I get bored and the painting gets pushed aside. My greatest ideas stew in my head for awhile. It becomes a mental work of execution before I apply my brush, so that the painting flows along pretty smoothly once I apply myself to it.

I use a fair amount of clairvoyancy in my work. I have the ability to see ultra violet and infrared color and I’m always trying to find ways for viewers to see those colors and their derivatives in my work. I was trained to look through and take in the colors that people just don’t notice. I think that’s the secret in making beautiful art.

For many years I worked small. It was common for me to paint a 2″x2″ painting just to catch the essences of a scene, then paint them larger in my studio. People liked those little paintings so I sold a lot of them. My eyesight isn’t as good as it use to be, so a 5″x7″ is about as small as I want to paint now, and I’m painting much bigger works now.

A number of years ago I added oil paint to my repertoire of mediums and I have enjoyed the ability to make changes without any effort as I am working it. I’ve owned oil paints most of my life but didn’t have the patience to wait for it to dry, so it was a go-to when I painted very large work. Now, I enjoy it almost as much as watercolor because I can take my time with it.

I have carved wood since I was about age 12. Carving is dangerous because of the sharp knife factor, but my skill level is such that I seldom cut myself. Creating something in 3D is more satisfying then 2D but it takes longer and is less lucrative than other mediums. But the possibilities can be really satisfying and dynamic to me.

I have experimented with many mediums such as Air Brush, Acrylic, Wood burning, Fabric Art, Pen and ink and more, and enjoy them all. I thought that as a young man I would end up as a cartoonist/ childrens book illustrator/ writer. I have accomplished that however, and discovered early on that publishing politics weighed heavy on the craft and I eventually back-burnered it. Maybe I might someday pick that one up again as I have a lot of good ideas.

I think that if I were stranded on a desert island alone I could find a way to entertain myself with some form of art, weather it was charcoal or sand art. I am always making something out of nothing.