Yesterday in coffee + cre8tive, talented Justin Clayton inspired us with his daily paintings. I asked him if he'd be willing to share with us a few 'real life' shots of his work in an actual room; I personally need to see art living in a space - scale matters a lot to me. I also had a chance to learn more about our daily painter...

decor8: Can you tell us about yourself - where are based, what do you do for a living?

justin: I was born and raised in California, currently living in Los Angeles. I've had other occupations but at the moment I'll call myself a painter as that is the title I am most fond of and it's what I am doing right now. My formal art training was from two schools: California Art Institute and Los Angeles Academy of figurative art.

decor8: Who are you inspired by?

justin: John Sargent, Nicolai Fechin, Andrew Wyeth, Duane Keiser, and Richard Schmid.

decor8: We love your daily paintings. Tell us, where do you want to go with this?

justin: To do larger gallery work (16x20 and larger) and make an honest living at it. I am interested in doing portraits. Portraits in the sense of capturing a personality of a subject. I very much enjoy painting people but painting portraits to me can mean painting a personality of an object like a jar, or a pear, or a leaf. It is amazing to me that under certain lighting conditions or view points these things seem to take on an enormous amount of personality. The more I paint the more I realize personality is what I am drawn to and that's what I'm trying to achieve when I'm painting something. The "daily paintings" serve as a road of exploration. Painting these allow me to experiment with lighting, technique, subject matter etc. Creating the website is my way of staying on track. It's like when someone tries to lose weight or stop smoking they tell a friend so they know if they fail that friend is going to give them a really hard time. I guess it's kind of like that. :)

decor8: Tell us about your hobbies.

justin: Computers, rock climbing, swimming, running. I often find cool things to paint when I'm running.

Thank you Justin for stopping by to visit us, we look forward to watching you grow as an artist and eventually, we hope spot you in galleries! Best wishes.

(images from Justin Clayton)