ROBERT J. SIMONE "Shrimpers at Shem Creek" 18x24" $3,950. (available for presale) Robert J. Simone is an artist with the ability to see extraordinary beauty in ordinary places. His enthusiasm for nature and passion for painting are infectious. He has been described as a highly skilled representational painter who possesses a wonderful sense for color, movement and composition. Simone has a way of seeing, an artistic vision, which is all his own. His style is a painterly realism influenced by an appreciation for historical painters of the Cape Ann School, such as Aldro Hibbard, Emile Gruppe and Frederick Waugh. With little formal training, Robert learned the principles of his craft by taking workshops with such contemporary masters as Scott L. Christensen, Anthony Ryder, Clayton Beck III, Stapleton Kearns, Christopher Still and Mary Erickson. Robert supported himself through those years of intense study with positions that kept him close to nature and near the sea. Now his distinctive blend of confident brushstrokes, sensuous colors and captivating light portray his emotional responses to the scenery he loves. His love for the sea is prominent in his body of work. And most days will find him at his easel near the water’s edge, brush in hand, exploring his passion. He paints on location often so that nature herself informs the paintings he creates. It’s this experience of the elements that make his landscapes and seascapes in oil so highly collected. Simone is a highly regarded instructor who strives to inform, encourage and inspire. He is a generous, organized and patient teacher. He is known for the rare ability to explain what he is doing and why, as he demonstrates. Robert says that painting requires a basic framework of expression, a language all its own. That universal framework is the simplified language of shapes, values, colors, edges. Fundamentally it boils down to seeing nature in those simple paintable terms and handling the paint with some finesse. On a practical level it’s about noticing, comparing and making corrections