Representative Works:
Pont en Royan
Day at Cafe Menton
Day in Ville Franche
Lavender Fields
Barbara McCann was born and raised in western Pennsylvania, in the rural environs of Newcastle. She began her artistic endeavors with drawing as a child, and then with painting in her teenage years. Upon graduating from high school, she took a four-year apprenticeship in architectural illustration and design, which set the stage for a career in commercial art. McCann moved to Florida in 1973, and for the next 20 years ran her own architectural illustration studio.
McCann's career and interests in commercial and fine art dovetailed. While maintaining her business, McCann explored a variety of mediums and methodologies for landscape and portrait painting. In the late seventies, McCann worked to develop a more fluid, translucent presentation in her art. She melded her fine art talents with her commercial work by painting architectural renderings in watercolors, which caused a sensation among her clients. In the mid-eighties, McCann returned to oils as the primary medium for her noncommercial art, utilizing watercolors solely for sketches of landscapes and people.
McCann's skills in art and architectural illustration led to a decade-long relationship as an instructor with the Ringling College of Art & Design. From 1983 to 1993, she taught classes in perspective drawing and illustration at the Florida college, which is rated as one of the finest art schools in the United States. She developed an approach to the intrinsically difficult study of perspective that made it comprehensible and useful to even novice artists. She is considering outlining her methods in a book.
McCann's use of the palette knife adds a textural level to her images, which contributes to the overall impression of liveliness. In some ways, she doesn't paint so much as sculpt a scene. Her heavy impasto technique imbues objects and figures with an air of solidity and dimension. The palette knife is well suited to her style, which is reminiscent of impressionism.
Light, shadow, color, texture -- these are the fundamental elements of Barbara McCann's art. Her expertise in architectural rendering, keen eye for perspective, affection for landscape and figure painting, comprehensive understanding of the malleable nature of oils, and appreciation for the beauty in the world, both natural and manmade, all enrich the images McCann commits to canvas and paper. She creates visions of warmth and wonder, full of life and light.