A question I often get from a casual observer or contact is whether or not I have any artwork for sale, which is a great question!  About 75% of my art belongs to somebody else within a few weeks of painting it, and some of it, we want to keep in our own private collection (some, I’ve specifically given to Debbie and good luck getting it out of her clutches as she always says, “That one is going in the museum!”).  But, if you’re interested in collecting or owning my art, I have a couple of ways for you to achieve that goal today and a few more coming in 2021...

Today:

Commission:
Today, your best option is to commission me on a piece.  I’m doing a really large commission right now that I am really excited to share with folks in the coming weeks.  When you commission a piece, I ask if you have anything specific you want me to paint, what sizes/dimension are you looking for, are their color schemas that you love, I do some research, I usually do 5-7 test sketches and paintings, sometimes more.  Depending on the size of the piece, I can have anywhere between 25-100 hours into it before the final product is ready to be shared.  I require 50% of the payment up front and if for any reason, I can’t finish the painting within 90-100 days, I reimburse the full amount back to you and we call it even.  If you don’t want to or can’t pay for the remaining portion of the agreement or if you don’t like the final painting, I generally keep the down payment to offset my time and the painting goes up for sale to the general public.  If you love the piece, upon final payment, I will ship it to you.  If you want me to manage matting and framing, I will do that at an additional cost - I have several local artisan framers that I can use.  I will say this: when I paint something, there’s nothing else like it on earth.  Whether it is a masterpiece or just an artistic expression of my rendering of a subject, there is only one.  I’ve lost a lot of good paintings to this or that, it always breaks my heart.  When I paint something, I put my energy into it fully and do my best at that given moment and as such, they’re not cheap.  I wish there was a way to do it more inexpensively, I wish supplies didn’t cost so much (I usually only high-end artist grade supplies) and I wish I had more time and it wasn’t such a commodity so I could paint more pieces but time is the enemy to all things...  I will only be able to crank out so many paintings in my life and i hope that they bring joy to all of the casual viewers and collectors alike!

Inventory:
On the Art Page, you can peruse through my paintings and check on my inventory.  I’ve had some people get mad because they find a painting they like and when they get around to letting me know that they are interested, it is no longer available - in fact, this happens a lot - it’s frustrating for us both.  So if you do see something that you like, let me know and I’ll set it aside.

Pricing:
I mentioned pricing earlier, it is always evolving as my skill and demand for my work increases, the price will also increase.  Art supplies are pricy, no joke!  I estimated, that I can have $200-300 in supplies into a full-sheet 22x30 sized painting and that doesn’t include my time.  But, if you love something and money is tight, reach out nonetheless, I will set it aside for you until money gets better, or we can come up with some good terms, a payment plan, a discount and yes, many times, I’ll just send it to you for free, because my art is no good if it is put away - I want it on walls bringing joy and I figure next time you may be in a better spot to buy another one.  Life happens but an original piece of art, is timeless...

Tomorrow:

So, I have a few exciting things that are beginning to line up for 2021 that I would like to announce here.  First, I am going to be creating a Patreon site that allows you to join into one of several monthly tier programs.  I don’t have the pricing worked out but I’m sure it will be reasonable - maybe from $3.99 a month up to $19.99 a month.  Beyond having more access and interaction as well as other VIP benefits, members will also get 1-2 watercolor or gouache original painted postcards per year, deep discounts on my art work and participate in monthly free drawings.  I may also share videos and other content of me on the Patreon site showing how a painting comes together and much more.  I am working on putting the program together and will be announcing it here.

The second thing that I’m really excited about is going to be the launch of gowatercolor.com, a website that I am going to curate all about watercolor.  I will interview other watercolorists, do watercolor related reviews, share exciting articles, videos and much more.  So keep an eye out sometime in the second quarter for the official launch of gowatercolor.com!!!!

​More to come...

More to come but here are a few shots of Flynn, Hope & Debbie Christmas morning...

My wife Debbie has epilepsy.  We found out in 1999 and for a number of years it really wrecked havoc on her life.  We got it under control several times but back in 2017, she had to have surgery to remove and replace the vertebrae in her neck and a few weeks later, she began to have frequent, violent massive seizures, the kind that are very dangerous and that we had never seen before.  Her Neurologist was stymied so I started researching and tracking her seizure activity.  There was a clinical paper written in Russia that identified the impact of oxygen reduction during sleep and correlation to Grand Mal seizures.  I studied Debbie while she slept, strange as that sounds and it seemed to me that she had an apnea and needed oxygen support so we got her doctor to order a sleep study and sure enough, she had apnea and oxygen deprivation issues.  When she started on the CPAP and oxygen saturation at night - like a miracle, no seizures.

Her machine has been acting up off an on for several months and her oxygen machine too is acting a little squirrelly.  She tried to call our medical device provider Apria Healthcare several times but we hit a bunch of red tape, calls were dropped, shipments never arrived, candidly, they made it a real pain in the rear to get the problem resolved.  The machine quit for good on Christmas Eve - just terrible timing.  We contacted Apria yesterday oh Christmas Day, the first rep was not helpful; they promised someone would call back but they did not - it was Christmas so we kinda understood.  Debbie had two smaller seizures yesterday but you could tell things were amping up to get worse.  

Today Debbie called without success.  Turns out the machine is not under warranty, the respiratory support person told her that the machine has a three-year warranty but in reality we had got the machine in late April 2018 - a date I will remember well because I basically did not sleep from January until then that year, waking up to convulsions and seizures all night long.  She called several others to no avail.  Finally I called the main number and reached a lady who was helpful.  She got me to a person locally named Chris.  No listen, I ripped Chris up one side and down the other, it wasn’t pretty, I was upset, I knew where we were heading.  Chris was patient and explained that he had no record of the machine because we owned it and it was outside of the rental period.  He further explained that what we needed to do was get a new prescription from our doctor and gave me an after-hours fax line to get the prescription to; so we wrote our doctor and explained the situation.  Debbie’s doctor is on vacation with the holidays so we were in store for a few more days without the device and things looked bleak.

I didn’t like the answer, I didn’t fully understand why a three year warranty and contract ended prematurely but I knew what was about to unfold so, without a doubt, I was agitated.  It’s not just this, Debbie has been wrestling with a slew of health issues since July - back vertebrates with arthritis, a toe infection that almost had to be amputated, low serum sodium levels, it’s been a ROUGH few months and now seizures were going to be part of the mix.

A little bit later, the dogs are going crazy because somebody is at the door.  I’m in the shower and Alex comes up and said that Carlos had a replacement machine for Debbie.  It turns out that Chris and Carlos got together and figured out a solution and Carlos drove down to Castle Rock from Centennial to bring us the machine.  I had missed the call because I was in the shower.  I’m just awe struck and so eternally grateful at this act of kindness - what a true Christmas miracle!  I hope that I can figure out how to thank Carlos and Chris in a better manner, maybe with some gift cards or something but what a incredibly nice act of kindness when we needed it most!

One other thing really struck me today...  As of today, 1 out of every 1000 Americans has been killed by COVID-19.  The math is pretty intuitive and obviously I’ve been concerned about this virus from the onset and am dismayed as to why Americans would politicize this issue; but when you hear it put in such plaintive terms, it is haunting and spooky.  I hope that we prevail, that the vaccines right our overall defenses to this scary invisible killer, that mutations are constrained and not as deadly and that we can heal from these troubled times and come together as a country and as a people.

Hello, it is very nice to meet you.  My name is Dan.  I am originally from southeastern Indiana and currently reside in Castle Rock, Colorado with my beautiful, fun and slightly chaotic wife Debbie, our two kids, Alex and Flynn, two aging dogs and a half-wild cat who lives in the basement.

​I have so many interests and passions, including:

• Serving people who are in vulnerable positions like those who are challenged with cancer or homelessness.
• Nature, wildlife and conservation.
• Innovation, technology and life hacking.
• Building the perfect business and product portfolio.
• Scaling organizations, innovating markets and building strong teams.
• The arts, painting, writing, poetry, music, photography, art museums, art collecting, galleries and supporting artists.
• Gardening, cooking and culinary pursuits.
• Traveling and adventures.
• Laughing, smiling and trying to be a positive force wherever I can.

What makes me tick?  What is my personality?

• I am a Myers Briggs INTJ/ISTJ.  I tend to be more sensory based when I’m trying to unpack something and the intuition kicks in when I’m making systems or plans.  You know that scene in the Avengers movie where Dr. Stranger is glitching out on the moon or somewhere and he says he looked through the million-plus possibilities and Ironman asks him, “In how many do we win,” and Dr. Strange says, “One.”  Relatable!
• I can be an over-achiever - mostly I’m just incredibly curious and believe in the untapped capacity of human beings and see hurdles or obstacles as the path forward and try to solve the problems they create.
• I'm a bit of a Renaissance man, insatiably curious to learn new things, have new experiences and always modifying and reinventing.  I ask a ton of questions, which can drive people crazy.
• I’ve got a kind heart, I don't feel it necessary to carry around the burden of an over-inflated ego,  but I am confident in myself and my abilities and over time I’ve grown to trust myself and my heart.
• I’m optimistic and positive; as I’ve grown older, I have found that I have a fairly low tolerance for those who are pessimistic or low-energy.
• I’m hyper-creative and really love to find creative ways to innovate things in my life or in my professional life
• I’m principled, integrity-driven and trustworthy - these are important values to me.  My orientation is to always to do the right thing.  

Debbie and I took a back way to Rocky Mountain National Park to see the great elk rut of 2020.  We say well over 100 elk across several herd and also saw some deer, a fox and the terrible forest fires surrounding the park and to the north...