The Winter 2012 issue of "Watercolor" magazine again featured an article on Mike Killelea's plein air watercolors and his approach to painting and teaching.

Click here to download a PDF copy of the Winter 2012 "Watercolor" magazine article "Painting Off the Beaten Track"*.

The 2006 annual issue of "Watercolor Highlights" was headlined “20 Painters Share Their Secrets”. This annual compilation of the best in watercolor painting, included a story on Mike Killelea's travel paintings titled "China, From the Tip of a Brush” which had been printed in the Spring 2005 issue of “Watercolor” magazine.

Click here to download a PDF copy of the Spring 2005 "Watercolor" magazine article*.

* As published in 'Watercolor' magazine, Spring 2005 and Winter 2012.
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Trekking along a Painterly Path

Michael Killelea sees himself as an artist, author, teacher and traveler. As a native of Long Island, NY, most of his life has been spent on or near the water. However he now finds himself living among the cows and cornfields of western NY where he divides his time between painting, teaching and traveling. He's a US Navy veteran and an avid outdoorsman, two parts of his spirit which are reflected in the dance of light and shadows throughout the wide natural world he paints. In spite of his sometimes frantic efforts, he never seems to have enough time to capture the beauty he see's at every turn. Killelea is an inveterate "plein-air" painter who feels that the watercolor medium is most alive when painting on location, and he takes delight in sharing that joy with his students, no matter where in the country he's teaching. He has traveled extensively, and almost always with paint and brush, recording his impressions of people and places across the US and around the world.

Killelea's work and biography have been included along with other selected members of the American Society of Marine Artists, in the Smithsonian Institution's Library for the American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery and have become the basis for a permanent file on him there. His watercolors have additionally been featured at the BJ Spoke Gallery in Huntington, NY, the Marineart Gallery in Manhattan, the Terra Cotta Gallery in Cutchogue, NY and in numerous local exhibits elsewhere. They are currently on display at the Castello di Borghese vineyard in Cutchogue, NY. 57 of them were featured in a major solo exhibition at the New York Mercantile Exchange in NYC. A collection of his Huntington (NY) Harbor paintings were selected to comprise the premier show at the Town of Huntington's online art exhibit, sponsored by Long Island Congressman Steve Israel. His paintings have also been exhibited at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, WA, the Cummer Art Museum in Jacksonville, FL, the Museum in the US Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY, the Riverfront Art Center in Wilmington, DE, the Cultural Art Center of Cape Cod in Dennis (MA), the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (MD), the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath (ME), the Noyes Museum of Art in Oceanville, NJ, the Spartanburg (SC) Art Museum, the New Bedford (MA) Art Museum, and in the Vero Beach Art Museum in Florida. Two of his paintings were part of an exhibit in the Capital Building in Washington, DC and became part of the US Navy Museum collection in Washington.

He is the Secretary and on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Marine Artists (ASMA), and is a Signature member of the Society. He is on their Exhibitions Committee and is Chairman of ASMA's Regional Exhibitions and maintains their website. He's also a member of the Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society and is on the Board of Directors of the Niagara Arts & Cultural Center in Niagara Falls, NY. Killelea is a graduate of SUNY Farmingdale and has attended Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts. His work is in numerous private collections, has been reproduced on book and magazine covers, posters, prints & greeting cards and is featured in two books he wrote and illustrated about Long Island's rural North Fork.

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