We shine our Artist Spotlight on our own creative director, Derek Redwine as he shares his love of family, art and the great outdoors.
Q:Where do you live?
A:Brevard County – Florida (Yes where the space shuttle launched from.)
Q:What mediums do you work in and what is your favorite?
A:I’ll work with any medium I can get my hands on from pencil, markers to digital graphics but my fine art pieces are typically acrylic on stretched canvas.
I do however do a lot of original art on reclaimed wood, which gives the work a lot of depth and texture.
Q:What are your other hobbies, and are they related to your artwork?
A:I love to fish, go figure. My favorites are fly-fishing and bottom fishing, though not done at the same time. Even funnier is the fact that I have two very distinctively different social groups that I do each with. I also enjoy surfing, diving and paddle boarding.
Q:How did you get started and what was the evolution of your style?
A:My Mom always bought me art supplies from the time I was very young right up until today. Often I might have been a little disappointed that I didn’t get more Star Wars people under the tree, but I would not be who I am today without my Mom fueling my love of art and my Dad always taking me fishing, diving and shrimping. The rest just grew from that.
I was charter boat mate for years and eventually started creating all the designs for the charter boat’s shirts in our area. That evolved into a full time graphic design business with my wife Cory.
The fine art I have sorta just kept to myself and a handful of collectors and friends over the years but now I’m at a place where my confidence is a little higher and I’m not as worried to show off my work.
Q:What goals do you have for your artwork, what does the future hold?
A:I absolutely love my job at BD and the people I work with. I believe in what we do as much as you can with a job where you are not saving lives or anything. People just seem to like what we do. But I’m a very dedicated or slightly obsessive person. My evening and weekends are filled with art. My mind is filled with so many outdoor images that I literally get moody if I can’t get them out.
My goals are to be respected as an outdoors artist and not just as a marketer and graphic designer.
Q:Is there a message or theme behind your artwork?
A:OUTDOORS! Just throw your TV and computer in the D#@! trash and go enjoy the outdoors. HAHA, how is that for a double-edged sword. I create online content and despise the fact that the world is glued to their TV and social media, I guess we all just have to find a happy medium. Actually, stay glued to your electronic devices. I will be outside with less people around.
Q:What or who inspires you?
A:The list is way to long. Guy Harvey paved the way for so many, but I can give you a list or maybe I will publish a list one day of all the creative people who have inspired me but more importantly have done a lot to make marine art the respected fine art medium that it has become today versus even 50 years ago.
Q:What has been the hardest project, or what is the hardest aspect of you art?
A:Meeting my own expectations, you sit down to a blank medium and your mind is teeming with creative thoughts. I rarely meet or even come close to what my mind’s eye sees or wants to get on canvas. I have so much mental vision to download, but such a bottleneck to actually get it out. It can be frustrating being creative.
Q:What brings you the most satisfaction or sense of accomplishment?
A:I guess appreciation. A collector/client getting excited or sharing in the feeling I tried to convey with my art. I would love to say someday that I met my expectations of a piece. That would probably give me the most satisfaction if I looked at a finished piece of art and thought to myself. “Wow, I could not have done that better or expressed that outdoor feeling any better than I did right there.”
Q:Please share with us any other aspects about yourself.
A:I have enjoyed the outdoors since I was young; I have shared the outdoors with my wife, son and so many friends that I have no regrets in that sense. Every person’s fishing picture I see makes me jealous to go do the same thing. I don’t think I will ever get sick of crossing species off my “bucket list”. I have traveled to so many amazing places and fished with the best of the best but it never seems like enough!
If we are talking about life experiences I have so many to share but at some point I just feel like a braggart. I’m very thankful to have been close friends with Jose Wejebe, we have done several shows together that focused on my family life and the simplicity of my approach.
I plan to grow old, hopefully working at BD Outdoors doing what I do and creating outdoor art and expressions in a small art gallery with my wife till the end.
No one should ever feel bad when I reach the “end” either…cause I have done exactly what I have always wanted to do with the people I wanted to do it with since I was young. It’s just the ADD side of me that wants me to do it twice as much.
Currently I am embarking on a bit of a challenging art exhibit of sorts. For the last few months I have been doing morning creative exercises and posting them on social media. The demand for each day’s sketch became so great that it grew into the idea of letting collectors purchase special occasions or other dates on my calendar. This entitles them to the original signed 6×8 piece of art I do that day.
At the end of the year, for each the 365 days, I will be doing a small documentary and art exhibit about my daily art and all the wonderful people and inspirations I got while doing this. Each day I post my art on my FB account, Instagram and my website.
Editor’s Note: I’m proud to say that Derek is one of my best friends, and our friendship began from my admiration of his artwork. I asked him to create a piece as a gift for someone, and from that time on we have spent countless hours chasing fish or wishing we were chasing fish. That was twenty years ago, and now I’m proud to work with him at BD too. Now lets go chase some fish buddy!
