Bradley Hendershot

Member since 2022

Bradley Hendershot shares a studio in rural Hoppenville, Pennsylvania, located about forty-five miles northwest of Philadelphia, with his wife, artist Katharine (Katy) Krieg. Brad’s watercolour work concentrates on Pennsylvania and on rural and coastal New England, and he has an intense devotion and enthusiasm for what he does.

Hendershot says: "I am inspired by my daily life and I paint what is familiar to me--places and things that I know well, places and things that have a special meaning to me. My painting process is very personal to me, and I paint subjects that are intimate to my life. My work involves intense feelings, and I hope that my paintings are able to evoke a strong emotional response. Often, an event in my life triggers feelings that result in the mood of a painting. My paintings tell a story, and that story is my life. There is strong emotion in each piece, and I want to share that emotion."

Brad tends to study his subjects down to the last detail and he makes the effort to learn their history and significance prior to beginning a painting. He uses watercolour in a representational manner, and mood and feeling are key elements in his work. Although Brad paints with an intense devotion to realistic detail, artistic license is employed for the sake of composition and to evoke a certain feeling or mood in the viewer. Using this creativity in the overall planning of a work, Brad emphasizes the features and details that best capture and produce the desired effect or emotion.

“I find watercolor to be very challenging and rewarding, and I like the spontaneity and freshness of the medium. However, if I get particularly interested in the form and texture of a subject, I will take watercolour one step further. Texture is often the real subject of my paintings, and this is where I will use the painstaking process of drybrush, building on the initial fluid washes of watercolor. Using drybrush, details are built up in multiple layers using many small strokes of the brush and very little water with the pigment. The color, in spots, may be very dense and opaque, emphasizing the transparency of other areas. Most often, a combination of both wetbrush and drybrush techniques can be found in a single work. I don't stick to the traditional watercolor rules in my painting. I use a variety of techniques, doing what I feel is necessary to obtain the result I want in the finished work. I begin each new concept by doing preliminary sketches of the subject. These studies are most often done in pencil or watercolour.

All images ©2023 Bradley Hendershot