CALIFORNIA PLEIN AIR: Original Paintings by Dirk Harman
I am a native Southern Californian artist and writer who has spent the last three decades teaching in public high schools near the Tijuana-San Diego border.
When I am not working with students in the classroom – an important job that I feel very fortunate to have – I frequently travel to the beaches, mountains and deserts of this region for artistic inspiration and fresh subject matter.
I have been drawing, painting, and writing about Southwest American landscapes, architecture and people for most of my adult life. My painting style is heavily influenced by the California Impressionists of the early 20th Century, including Edgar Payne, William Wendt and Anna Hills. I am also the published author of Natives in Exile, a literary novel set in a small fictional town in the Mojave Desert and Semper Aloha, a memoir about growing up in a USMC family stationed in Hawaii in the 1960s, just as the first American troops were being deployed to Vietnam. My favorite writers include John Steinbeck, William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Like any brick-and-mortar gallery, most of the art on display on my website is available for sale, and so are my books. Take a look around and let me know what you think or come back later if you don't have the time right now. I will do my best to keep new work up on the walls. Thanks for stopping by!!! – DH
When I am not working with students in the classroom – an important job that I feel very fortunate to have – I frequently travel to the beaches, mountains and deserts of this region for artistic inspiration and fresh subject matter.
I have been drawing, painting, and writing about Southwest American landscapes, architecture and people for most of my adult life. My painting style is heavily influenced by the California Impressionists of the early 20th Century, including Edgar Payne, William Wendt and Anna Hills. I am also the published author of Natives in Exile, a literary novel set in a small fictional town in the Mojave Desert and Semper Aloha, a memoir about growing up in a USMC family stationed in Hawaii in the 1960s, just as the first American troops were being deployed to Vietnam. My favorite writers include John Steinbeck, William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Like any brick-and-mortar gallery, most of the art on display on my website is available for sale, and so are my books. Take a look around and let me know what you think or come back later if you don't have the time right now. I will do my best to keep new work up on the walls. Thanks for stopping by!!! – DH
