BIOGRAPHY
HitchenWorks Profile
As a commercial artist, designer, and retired advertising executive, I've spent the past 40 years honing my skills in the visual arts.
I've concentrated on drawings in pen and ink and pencil... paintings in oils, acrylics.
My work is often to do with the sea... but not always. Every idea is a potential subject and its expression sometimes becomes my compulsion.
Upon graduation from UMASS Dartmouth (then called Bradford Durfee Technical Institute) with a Bachelor of Science Degree (of all things) in Advertising Design, I went to work as a technical illustrator for a defense electronics company. I loved illustration and worked at it for a few years. My art has always had a technical character and this was a great job for me. I won a number of professional awards and eventually become Art Director beginning a separation from hands-on art production. I moved on to Advertising Manager (a good fit for my degree), then on to Marketing Communications Manager. In that job I got to do lots of design work in many fields, i.e., advertising, exhibits, corporate identity. Unfortunately for me, my work seldom went beyond the rough creative design stage. I missed painting and drawing but needed a paycheck.
All during those years, I continued to sketch, draw and paint whenever I could. I retired in 2001 and soon started to paint seriously; trying to make up for lost time, I guess.
I think of my paintings as illustrations of little pieces of my life and experience. Because I grew up on and in the water and have been a lifelong sailor, my subject is often nautical or water-related. Lately though, I have found myself working on different subjects. I am producing a series of paintings from a long road trip through the South and West, and it is hard to find a lot of waterfront in Arizona. I am painting kids, baseball and airports and my style is evolving, becoming less illustrational and more simplistic with a bolder use of color. It's also improving, I hope.
Philosophically, I can only hope that my art pleases your eye, stimulates your mind and heart, and shows you our world through my eyes. Please enjoy it!