Ian has been drawing since he was a kid, but first tried his hand at watercolor in the late 1980s, inspired by impressions of Europe speeding past the windows of fast-moving trains. After an extended stop in Florence, Italy the desire to make some sketches led him into a supply store. He picked out the most basic of materials that he could afford on his $30/day budget. "It immediately had the effect of slowing down my thinking and just take everything in", he recalls, within a couple of years he held his first show at a gallery in the seaside town of Stonington, CT., and things have proceeded organically from there. In the years following his style has evolved by trial and error, learning primarily by observing the work of painters he admires. Over the past 25 years Ian has exhibited regularly in local and regional galleries, outdoor art shows and in solo exhibitions. For many years he maintained a studio in the historically distinctive Westerly, RI downtown area. He now works out of a studio in his home. His work has a local following, but a number of paintings have found their way into international collections, a possibility he never imagined that first day sketching in the hills above Florence.