Donny Luke is passionate about watercolors.  After more than 40 years as a professional architect, he is now retired and focused on exploring, discovering and expanding his knowledge of the media.  He expresses the journey as “Pure Joy”.

He paints mainly landscapes using reference photos taken on his many journeys across North America, as well as, around his home in Leicester, NC, just northwest of Asheville.  This continent, including the rural landscape and historic structures in Western North Carolina, provides rich, dramatic and beautiful scenery and he finds it his purpose to try to document and creatively express it in a way that does it justice.  He is fascinated by the creative process of developing a painting. 

Every painting is an adventure that many times seems to take on a life and direction of its own, often diverging from the initial design as it develops.  Being open to "following" that direction or literally "going with the flow of watercolor" provides a sense of discovery and adventure that makes the process of painting exciting and joy-filled. 

Donny has studied under nationally known watercolor artists including Michael Reardon, Iain Stewart, Keiko Tenabe and Antonio Masi.  He is a member of the Watercolor Society of North Carolina, Western North Carolina Plein Air Painters and the National Watercolor Society.  He has had paintings juried into both the 2018 and 2020 Watercolor Society of North Carolina Annual Juried Exhibitions with the 2020 painting receiving the WSNC Permanent Collection Purchase.

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