Michael Prettyman
When did you first become interested in art?
I have always been interested in making art, it’s what my hands do.
However, it was not until I turned 21 or so that I became interested in pursuing art full time. I went back to school, got a job painting murals and was off to the races. That was nearly 20 years ago and I have been fortunate enough to paint and sculpt full time ever since.
Has your style changed from when you first began as an artist?
Yes and no. I have always admired the achievements of the old masters in Italy and Holland. Those paintings have set a very high bar for the rest of us, and yet I wonder it is still relevant to keep trying paint the perfect still life or portrait.
Persephone
So, I painted in old master style for years, abandoned it to make abstract work, then came back to it. Thats where I am now.
What style of art do you use most?
Representational realism. I paint in a style cobbled together from old master techniques (for draftmanship and glazes) and the wet-in-wet style used by John Singer Sargent and Eric Fischl ( for immediacy and the tricky opaque areas where light gathers and pools)
What medium do you use?
Oil on canvas and oil on panel. I also do some work in watercolor on 300lb watercolor paper.
What made you choose that medium?
Oil paint is superior, in my opinion, to all other painting mediums- I’ve tried them all. It can just DO more.
Watercolors are good for discipline and have a strange sort of calming effect on me. They are also easier to store because you can just put them in stack and then into a drawer.
Do your ideas come from life or imagination?
Both. Because my work is representational it will always contain a strong element drawn from life.
Nostalgia
I am seeking to keep representational painting alive and contemporary and so work from some post-modern ideas to create fresh,unexpected combinations of subject matter and execution. In that way the ideas are from the imagination.
How do you choose your images and colours?
I don’t choose them, they choose me.
Fortunately for me, God saw fit to equip this painter with a weird sort of template that constantly scans the world around me, looking for the things that “fit”. When they do, I know it and get excited. Then I go ahead make some paintings or drawings.
Who is your favourite artist?
What is your favourite piece of work by yourself?
I Hope.
I Hope
It’s part of a series of paintings called “Failed Experimental Aircraft” I did in an attempt to find images that hint at an optimism in life- an optimism that has ben sandblasted free of sentiment or bogus anything.
This one makes me feel like I have just set down the worries I drag around, and blasted up into the air.
It works intellectually and on gut level.
How much time (on average) does it take to complete a work?
Watercolors take between 4-8 hours. Oil paintings, depending on their size and complexity can take a couple of months.
How well do you take criticism?
Not well at all, unless it is positive.
Long Legs
What do you do to overcome a ‘block’?
I go to my image bank, which is less of a bank and more of pile of images collected from…. everywhere.
Pictures snipped from magazines, newspapers, found photographs, stuff from the web, scraps of cloth, various attractive detritus blowing around on the street; it’s all fair game.
How do you know something is ‘finished’? Is it easy to walk away?
I don’t finish paintings, they finish me.
It is almost true that I have never “Finished” a painting- I simply reach a point where what my “Little Man’ is telling me to fix or do has become so small that I can walk away.
Really, I just stop working on them. Sometime later I sell them, if I am lucky.
Cromag Skull
Have you had exhibits in galleries?
Yes, many.
I’ve shown in NYC- many group shows, had a few paintings in Hong Kong at New Art Gallery, and most recently showed two paintings at the National Museum in Kazakhstan. That was pretty interesting.
I want very much to do more international exhibiting- it’s a great experience.
Have you any exhibits in galleries planned for the future?
Alas, nothing concrete at the moment.
What are your plans for the future?
A series of paintings depicting Witches and a series of drawings starring a Faun named GoatBoy, who I am afraid is my alter ego. It seems like fun to draw him doing all the things I, for various reasons, cannot.
What advice would you give new artists?
Don’t give up, ever.
Follow your bliss.
Thank you so much for the interview Michael. May you live your dream 
You can view more of Michael’s images at www.prettymanprettyman.com
