Michael T. "Mike" Dunn

Oil painting is my passion.

Mike retired on January 1, 2010, after forty-one years in the information technology industry, specializing in network communications and interactive video conferencing for NCR, Intermedia Communications, and AT&T.

An avid SCUBA diver and motorcycle enthusiast, Mike needed something to keep him busy in the winter months. After returning from a month-long trip through Europe with his wife, Barb, in October 2010, his family encouraged him to paint some of the beautiful sights they had seen, if only to keep him out of their hair.

His first painting was a view of the Alps along the road to King Ludwig II's Linderhof Palace in southern Bavaria. Mike gave the painting to his daughter-in-law, Amy, as a Christmas gift that year, since she was the one who had really encouraged him to start. Nobody knew Mike had the ability to paint, least of all Mike, but it started a passion that lasted the rest of his life.

His nom de plume, "El Grande Artisto," was coined by his son-in-law. Mike was always known in the family as "Big Mike," his son Michael as "Little Mike," and his son-in-law as "Just Mike." After Mike's gastric bypass surgery in 2005 and a loss of 122 pounds, "Just Mike" had taken to calling him "El Grande Muchacho." Once the painting career began, the name became "El Grande Artisto," and it stayed with him.

Mike painted almost exclusively in oils. His only formal training was a three-hour instructional video by Bob Ross, whose "wet-on-wet" technique taught him that anybody can paint, because it is your world, and this is the way you see it. As Bob Ross liked to say, Mike never made a mistake, only happy accidents.

The mission of this gallery

Every print keeps a photograph or a painting and a line of truth in the same frame, the way he liked them. Orders keep his work in circulation and help his family carry it forward. Nothing here is mass-made. Each piece is printed to order, on paper meant to last.