Hello. My name is Brett Pigon. I am an electrical engineer by profession with list of hobbies that includes bicycling, running, backpacking, karate, and painting. I live in Grant, Florida with my family and pets. (update - had to stop bicycling, running, backpacking, and karate due to a mystery muscle problem, but at least I still have painting)

I got a late start at painting and it occurred in a strange way. While half-awake in the late morning after the night shift of my college summer job, the thought "I think I'll try painting today" literally popped into my head. I had never even thought about it previously. I had a set of oils given years before by a relative who mistakenly thought it was me, instead of my sister, who enjoyed art in high school (I never took any art classes in high school). Well the first product was abysmal but it was a start. I mean to create a picture out of colored soup-like stuff was hard! But I persevered. My second painting, of the USS Constitution (a traditional ship painting), hung in my parent's living room for about 20 years. My second, a mountain scene out of National Geographic, still hangs in my house. Not great art but they meet my measure of art - would I look at it more than once?

Anyway, like I said I kept at it, although always sparingly between other demands; college, work, kids, etc. I paint so infrequently though that I have to re-learn things each time, like how to mix skin color (especially in shadow), or get that skin blended smoothly. The total number of paintings have been so few that like as not I've never done one like it so I have to figure out how to achieve certain textures, lighting, colors, etc. It may not be great or "fresh", I know, but it's OK and it's mine and so I have a natural attachment to it. I paint for my family and me and listen to my own voice and tastes. I am an amateur painter, pretty much self-taught by the experience of painting and reading a handful of books. I have had a smattering of training if you can call it such; an introductory drawing and painting class in college, and two adult ed classes (at which absolutely nothing was taught I might add, but at least it was forced practice which I needed).

I owe most of my training to simply reading a handful of books and looking at a lot of museum pictures. The most significant book to me was "Painting Techniques of the Masters" by Hereward Lester Cooke Curator of Painting, National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC ( a great book, only recently challenged by a couple of Sister Wendy's art books). I suppose it's the engineer in me but I see things in a very literal way. Although I admire and appreciate some other artistic styles, I can only be me (but I feel I can copy anything I can see). Therefore all my paintings are in a very realistic style while striving to create a memorable, pleasing image. Although this is largely passé in the art world (not necessarily among average people however), I think in the complex world we live in today there will always be a place for this style.

I made this site because a) it was fun, b) it is perhaps the only stake to "immortality" I'll ever have, and c) to share some of these paintings with the people who have expressed their pleasure at seeing a handful of them in my company's employee art show. Thank you for your encouragement over the years.

e-mail me at bpigon@bellsouth.net