An Eye for Art: Self-taught Taneytown painter stresses realism in his work

Michael Sutphin is a painter living in Taneytown who got interested in art in the late 1980s while watching shows with his parents featuring Bob Ross and other artists.

“I watched them for many years, but I did not know I could paint. My wife, Lu, who is also an artist, said I had an artist gene because I could play musical instruments,” Sutphin said.

“In 2009, I took a class at Michael’s in Frederick. That is when I decided I could do this.”

“From then on, I was self taught. I watch videos and have bought videos. I never had any formal training. I have done over 100 paintings since then.”

He admires Bob Ross and Diane Maize who has tutorials on YouTube. “I have learned a lot from her,” Sutphin said.

Sutphin paints landscapes and seascapes and an occasional flower or butterfly. He is a realistic painter and uses oil paints. He employs a wet-on-wet technique, meaning he starts with a thin oil paint as a base coat. That allows the thicker paint to blend easier.

“I had never studied color theory and color harmony, which is still hard for me,”  Sutphin said.

Originally, he duplicated other artists’ work to learn. Now Sutphin takes an item such as a tree and puts it in another setting. Often, he puts elements from multiple photographs together.

For example, Sutphin was walking in his neighborhood and saw a tree that was flaming red. He took a photograph of it and decided to put it in a scene. “I knew it would be a fall scene and decided to add water to add coolness to balance the warm and cool colors,” Sutphin said.

Sutphin also paints scenes from his head. For example, he saw a photo of a snowy egret and then painted a marshy bay behind it from his imagination. He posted a progress photo of the painting on Facebook and sold it before it was completed.

“I wish I had started painting 40 years ago. I am 78 years old, and I am running out of time. There are so many things I want to paint,” Sutphin said.

Sutphin posts each painting on his website. Each image has a description of what motivated Sutphin to paint it. Sometimes there is a description of a scene. One painting is titled “Retired.”

“The view is a lane with a farm field that is taken over by flowers since it is no longer being cultivated. It is a new beginning for the field. Only the mountains and the trees in the distance know when the last time the farmer tilled this field,“ Sutphin explained.

In 2020, he and his wife moved to Carroll County.

Sutphin’s art has hung at The Delaplaine Art Center in Frederick, the Frederick Health Crestwood Breast Center and Artomatic in Downtown Frederick. He has shown locally at the Carroll Vista Clubhouse. He has won prizes at The Great Frederick Fair, including first-place awards.

He has donated his paintings to Heartly House, Inc. for survivors of domestic violence in Frederick and to a fundraiser to fight cancer at Carroll Vista.

Sutphin is a member of the Carroll County Arts Council and the Frederick County Art Association. He also takes commissions.

“When I am painting, I am just there and everything else goes away. I can leave this world and go into a different dimension. It is cheaper than a psychiatrist for me,” Sutphin said. “I have never done a painting that I am 100 percent happy with. That keeps me motivated to improve.”

Sutphin and his wife have a website: pineyhillartists.com. The  name comes from the hill where they lived for many years near Libertytown. His email is mwsutphin@gmail.com.

Lyndi McNulty is the owner of Gizmo’s Art in Westminster. Her column, An Eye for Art, appears regularly in Life & Times.