Todd Bonita is a New Hampshire based painter who studied at the Art Institute of Boston, and here in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
He has worked as a muralist, designer, sculptor, painter and illustrator, and has over 30 books to his credit.
As an oil painter, Bonita paints a variety of subjects, but focuses in particular on compositions involving small boats in the water. These are often in shallows, adding interesting effects of rocky, sandy or muddy bottom surfaces through layers of translucent water; along with weathered docks, reeds and shorelines arranged against the often colorful and texturally rich boats themselves.
Texture plays such a part in these paintings, in fact, that at first glance, I thought they were thickly layered pastels. Bonita works most often in oil on Masonite, wood panel or canvas; and the paintings featured on his blogs (he maintains two, painting life and Todd Bonita’s Art Blog) and web site vary in size from roughly 24×30″ to 6×8″.
He finds in his subjects wonderful areas filled with colors and textures of ground and water between his boats and their surroundings. Look at those areas as negative shapes to appreciate the strong design aspect of his compositions.
[Via Mick McGinty (see my posts on Mick McGinty)]
