Tim Liess

Artist Biography

Rather than presenting a single beautiful scene, the sweeping vistas of Tim Liess reveal the entire panorama the way the eye would view it. His watercolor landscapes capture the silent grandeur with which heaven meets earth and day greets night, making the viewer feel privileged to share the serenity of these moments. Liess and his wife, Natalie, and son, Nathaniel, are residents of Valparaiso, IN. His art, prints and posters of tranquil Midwestern landscapes are horizontal to provide the viewer with the sense of being there, as if you were standing out in the middle of a field, with nothing around but the infinite sky and endless terrain.

Liess was awarded two art scholarships to the American Academy of Art in Chicago, where he majored in Graphic Design and Illustration and minored in advertising. He worked out of his own studio as a commercial artist while participating in fine art shows. His medium of choice is watercolor, which he finds both unique and challenging due to its unpredictability. Using a nontraditional, dry brush layering technique with controlled brush strokes, a Liess art, prints and posters typically begins in the field, before dawn, where, armed with a camera and an abundance of film, he is ready to record the wonder and drama of another sunrise. Back in the studio, he examines his slides before making sketches. Once he begins a painting, Liess may use as many as 30 layers of transparent watercolor on heavy paper.

Liess paints those transitional times of day that evoke the strongest sense of calm and continuum, dawn and dusk. Humanity is suggested by the glowing lights of farmhouses and churches that bespeak welcome. The viewer is the only person to enter the landscape; no one and nothing else is present to detract from the mood, save for birds that soundlessly transect the heavens, or silent smoke, curling from chimneys and promising warmth to be found within. In a world of constant motion and change calling endlessly for our attention, the art of Tim Liess depicts permanence, providing a sense of stillness and a feeling of peace in his art, prints and posters.

Tim Liess Art, Prints and Posters Collection