After 25 years as a graphic designer and illustrator, Dan Michael began painting full-time in 2008. The majority of his work is produced on-site at locations near his home in Hanover County, Virginia. His approach to painting involves hundreds of scumbled strokes and marks of pigment, organized into patterns of shape and value, the result is a representation of reality. These arrangements of pastel marks go beyond a mechanical process, they are orchestrated to try and capture the elusive qualities of light and atmosphere that display the extraordinary characteristics of common subject matter.