Short Bio
A Springfield, Ohio native, Thomas Harwood is a highly respected Ohio painter. Mr. Harwood graduated with a degree in fine arts from Ohio University in 1968, where he majored in painting, printmaking and art history. Mr. Harwood taught art in the Springfield Local School District and was a summer art instructor at Wittenberg University as well as an art and art ethics instructor at the Springfield Museum of Art and an adjunct community college in Prescott, Arizona. In 1972 he joined his father at Springprint Paper Products and became part of a four-generation printing tradition. In 1985 he became its President. As a painter, Mr. Harwood is well-traveled and paints the American scene. Great old barns, moss-coated bridges, open fence gates shadowed by overhanging oaks, deserted school buildings, churches bright with hope, sycamores towering above a fast-running brook are all subjects that are viewed by his keen eye and painted with his sure hand. His latest series, "A Love Affair with Nature" features similar styles. Mr. Harwood's paintings and prints may be found in private collections both in the U.S. and abroad.
Statement
As an artist, I seek the relationship between light and color in landscape painting. My objective is to create a feast for the viewer and to draw them into each painting. For I believe that art reflects the soul of humankind.
Biography
Thomas Harwood was born in Springfield, Ohio. His Grandfather, Walter Evans, was a commercial artist and illustrator. A love of Art in general, and his paintings in particular, was always encouraged in his family. This was especially true with his parents. So too was a love of nature. Long walks along the Little Miami River, Rocky Point, and other scenic locations in Ohio taught Thomas how to see water, streams, rocks, trees, color, shapes, negative/positive spaces and sunlight with an Artist’s eye. Alongside this, his Grandfather Evans taught him how to frame a view, draw it on paper, and paint what he saw in these landscapes. From an early age Thomas loved to paint and draw. He had always been attracted to nature and would spend long hours studying art book pictures of famous painters. Early on, he was especially drawn to landscapes and would try to copy some of the styles he saw using what materials he had to work with. Because of this, his first oil paintings were on old blinds or on painted plywood scraps. While Thomas studied figure painting and the human anatomy, he knew he wanted to interpret nature, and man’s relationship to nature in art. To that end Thomas has been a life-long student of paintings by Monet, Seurat, Homer, Sisley, and Wyeth.
As an American Impressionist Landscape painter, Thomas is most comfortable painting in watercolors and oils. Harwood’s approach to watercolor and oil painting is a very ‘painterly’ technique. This means he does not usually paint in transparent washes. Harwood likes to build up the pigments; layering colors and accents while using small brushwork for accents. He often moves from dark into light, trying to create drama and mystery while giving the viewer a choice. The objective is to draw the viewer into the painting, making the viewer decide whether they would open the gate, enter the clearing, or explore the light.
