Lucien van Oosten

ARTIST'S BIO

Lucien F.A. van Oosten was born on the island of Java, Indonesia, of Dutch parents. His family relocated to California by way of the Netherlands in 1957.

Growing up in Pasadena, he went on his many hikes through the San Gabriel Mountains, where his keen fascination with nature's splendor and the elegance for its creatures was established. Then as now, his favorite things to do are to go to any place where there is water and animals, the Zoo, the Aquarium, the nature center. This fascination is clear in the trueness of the depiction of the various animals throughout his artwork. The great owl, the agile hawk, and the delicate seahorse all stand in testament of Lucien's ability to capture the beauty and elegance of nature's inhabitants.

At the age of two, his creative side was exposed when he took a bottle of black India ink, and poured it all over his parent's new couch. Another incident that displayed his creative side was that at an early age his parents bought him a paint by numbers set, which peeked his creative interests when he painted outside the lines and created his first painting. He has always loved being creative in all types of media, from building plastic models, to sketching and painting.

Lucien's command of both the chroma and chromatic techniques, are eloquently depicted in the beautiful pieces of artwork he has created. Lucien is proficient in pencil, colored pencil, pen/ink and mixed media drawing techniques. One of his favorite styles of drawing is pointillism. Lucien uses this technique and others to create subject study sketches from which he creates his paintings.

Lucien is currently employed as a Senior Design Specialist for an aviation life support company. He has always loved being creative in all types of media, from sculpting in plastics for his work, to sketching and painting. Lucien's work has been exhibited in numerous venues over the years. His work has appeared in publications such as "Litrus Literature and Art Anthology" published by Citrus College. This Publication shows the juried works of talented students; Lucien had three pieces selected for publication. His works have also appeared on the cover of "Bits and Bridle", an equestrian magazine, published in Santa Barbara. On the technical side, he wrote and illustrated a paper on creating a composite model airplane using a mold design by scaling down an artists rendering of a conceptual aircraft fuselage. The Society of Plastics Engineers gave Lucien an award for this innovative paper and published it in their 1987 convention directory.

In 2004, Lucien, was honored by the Dean and faculty of the Art Department at Citrus College, was given a certification for outstanding achievement in the Arts. Currently, Lucien has been expressing his artist abilities by creating his images using the media of acrylic and oil paint. His many creative interests have caused him to express himself in all types of media and mixed media as the galleries on his website www.mijnimages.com will attest.