Bryan McCormick

As a child Bryan never colored inside the lines. And as an adult he learned to embrace this tendency. Because ultimately, you can’t discover new territory without crossing a border or two. Born in 1982, an only child, Bryan Michael McCormick was raised in Jeannette, Pennsylvania. He busied himself by drawing and creating with his hands. His interest in art began at a young age, as he would meticulously copy Calvin and Hobbes comics. After becoming a wheelchair user following a skiing accident in 2001, Bryan vowed to always pursue his dreams and so he started practicing figure drawing, a skill he had always wanted to master. He made a commitment to challenge his abilities by attending figure drawing sessions at Carnegie Mellon University. Drawing was followed by painting, and in 2011 Bryan began studying watercolors. Oil painting soon followed. Bryan learned to paint by painting every single day and studying the design and composition of old masters. A proud member of the Carnegie Museum of Art, he makes regular visits to study composition and paint application, creating small paintings and sketches on site. Along with spending countless hours studying books on art at the library, Bryan continues to paint and draw every single day—painting with oils first thing in the morning, sketching in line for groceries, sketching meals, and painting watercolors into the early hours of the morning. He continues to attend figure sessions throughout Pittsburgh to maintain a practice of lifelong learning. To share the knowledge he has gleaned, Bryan teaches private lessons in his home studio. Bryan primarily paints with the Zorn palette, a limited color palette, which results in low chroma paintings focusing primarily on light, value, and composition. This results is paintings full of color harmony and strong value contrasts. Bryan is a juried member of the Pittsburgh Society of Artists (PSA) and Pittsburgh Watercolor Society (PWS). He has participated in a number