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My passion as an artist is to be unique and paint scenes that have not been created yet, and, at the same time, evoke some kind of emotion from the viewer of my art. My paintings have been described as "anything but ordinary" and "spontaneous but accurate". Maureen Bloomfield, editor of The Artist's Magazine was quote as saying, "What distinguishes Bill James' portraits from many of his contemporaries is their informality. Far from a studio, his characters are not models assuming a role but dancers at a festival, musicians at an outdoor concert, or actors recreating an historic charge. James emphasizes the characters' costume and gesture by often isolating them in fields of pattern and color. Because of James' craft (superb in not one but three media) is so confident, he can create compositions that seem discovered rather than planned. His portraits attest to the fact that an artists ambition can coexist with an onlookers delight, yet there is an underside to any joyous occasion, and James renders that as well, which is to say that his work is as serious as it is beautiful ".
This is a scene I saw while traveling in one of my favorite places to photograph reference material for paintings - Virginia. It was in the fall of the year when I observed this group of trees. It already had a nice design, so I simply heightened all the colors and made them brighter. I also added a blue mountain in the background to create a complementary color combination with the yellow trees which is a little more pleasing to the eye. This is a wonderful example of Impressionism.
All images and material copyrighted by Bill James 2007
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