Gary Eckhart considers his work to be representational with a heavy slant of a personal interpretation, definitely not photo-realistic; however, he does try to remain true to the shapes, textures and patterns that initially inspired him. Gary’s paintings start as a small value sketch which leads into a full size drawing of the subject. Once the design of the painting is approved, he transfers the design onto archival watercolor paper. Gary prefers working on 300 lb. paper because it eliminates any buckling of the paper during the painting process and allows him to use various techniques that would damage lighter weight papers. Gary often relies on numerous, but delicate, applications of layers of glazes of both staining and non-staining pigments to develop the textures and subtle tones of colors prevalent in his paintings.