About the Artist
David D. Pearce
Artist's Statement and Biography
On Painting Watercolor
My paintings usually start with a special feeling. Perhaps it’s going down to the shore in Maine after a long absence. Perhaps it’s the bustle of a bird souq in Cairo or a market in Jaffa. It might be the spiritual aura of cliffhanging monasteries in Greece or painting a Roman monument and decoding its inscription. It might be the Zen of fly fishing or of standing where sand, sea and palm trees meet at a California pier.
All these things have inspired my work at different times. What they have in common is that, with each subject, I knew right away I had to paint it and, sooner or later, I did. You don’t run out of that kind of inspiration, but you do have to keep track. I do this with notes and sketchbooks, where several paintings are usually waiting for a chance to emerge.
After the idea comes the front-end engineering. First, I ask myself what triggered that special feeling. I then figure out how best to convey it. I do sketches and value studies to work out the composition. Should it be portrait or landscape or square? What are the big shapes? What should be in and what should be left out? Does something need to be moved or added, like a figure? What is the palette?
Watercolor is best done quickly and confidently. It is far better to resolve questions in a value study than in the middle of a final painting. So before I ever pick up a brush for that painting. I want to have a plan for where I want to end up and how I intend to get there.
John Singer Sargent aptly compared painting watercolor to managing an emergency. If you are outdoors, you are contending with changing light. Indoors or out, you are managing paint, water, color combinations, values, brush strokes, drying times, hard and soft edges, and the layering of washes -- all at once. It is not for the faint of heart.
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Biography: At Home Away
Portland Head Light, watercolor/pen and ink
Whether a water carrier in Kuwait, a river in Maine, or a monastery in Greece, David Pearce brings us the world in his artwork.
Painting watercolors is his third career, building on nine years as a journalist and 35 as an American diplomat. He reflects this experience in his art.
“I have been drawing and sketching for as long as I can remember,” he said. But while his aptitude for art manifested itself early, he was not to pursue it systematically until well into his diplomatic career.
Maine and Italy – Formation
Pearce’s childhood was spent in mid-coast Maine. He attended Cheverus, a Jesuit high school in Portland, where he began his study of Latin. He continued this interest at Bowdoin College where he studied Classics and, inter alia, art history. His first plane trip was to a junior year semester in Rome, an experience that would point him toward an overseas career and spark lifelong passions for archaeology and language learning. He gained fluency in Italian, a prelude to later studies of French, Portuguese, Arabic, Persian, and Modern Greek.
After Bowdoin, Pearce obtained an M.A. in journalism at Ohio State University. He then worked for the Associated Press, the Rome Daily American, United Press International (in Brussels, Lisbon and Beirut), The Washington Post, and the National Geographic Society.
From Journalism to Diplomacy
As a reporter, Pearce covered revolution in Lisbon, civil war in Beirut, and political and economic change in the Arab world. He was UPI’s Beirut bureau manager and chief Middle East correspondent from 1976 to 1979. He met his wife Leyla in Beirut, where both of their children were born. From then on, much of Pearce’s professional career centered on the Middle East.
Both journalism and diplomacy honed important creative skills that he later applied to his art. News photography and photo editing taught the importance of planning, image selection, and cropping to focus on an area of interest. Wire service and broadcast writing taught concision and simplicity in creative expression. Working intensively with a National Geographic Society photographer for three months in China taught him the art and craft of photography: how to focus on a specific subject, how to gauge qualities of light and shadow, and how to compose an image to support a narrative. At NGS headquarters in Washington D.C. Pearce edited a how-to handbook on photography published as a companion to the 1981 book Images of the World: Photography at the National Geographic.
In 1982, he joined the Foreign Service where he attained fluency in Arabic. He was subsequently posted to Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Iraq, Jerusalem, and Algeria. In 2008 he was nominated by President George W. Bush to be the U.S. Ambassador to Algeria, serving there for three years.
Pearce was Embassy Kuwait political chief
in 1990 when Iraq invaded
Going to School with Winslow Homer
“It was in Algeria that I started to pay serious attention to painting,” he said. “In-country travel was severely restricted due to the high security threat. So, I did something I always had wanted to do – a serious study of drawing, including perspective, light and color. These drawing exercises led naturally to watercolor. And I haven’t stopped since.”
When Pearce started his self-study, he recalled reading Giorgio Vasari’s seminal Lives of the Artists in a college art history course. Vasari documented how artists in the 16th century learned their craft by copying the work of great masters. Raphael, for example, studied with Pietro Perugino, considered the first painter of his time. Vasari said Perugino’s apprentice “imitated his master’s manner so exactly that one cannot tell their works apart”. Since Pearce loved watercolors, and especially those of Winslow Homer, he began his exploration of watercolor by copying Homer. “This,” he said, “taught me a lot, especially about value and color.”
Homer lived and worked not far from where Pearce grew up and the Maine native has many books on Homer and his work. He also admires the masters John Singer Sargent and J.M.W. Turner. Favorite contemporaries include Thomas W. Schaller, Keiko Tanabe, John Salminen, Michael Reardon, UK artist Aubrey Phillips, and Greek watercolorist George Politis.
Pearce finds himself especially drawn to the work of artists who depicted the Mediterranean and the Middle East as Western artists first encountered it in previous centuries. Among them are Giovanni Battista Piranese, David Roberts, Edward Lear, Spencer Tart and David Howell. Pearce studied Lear’s paintings of Greece at the collection of the American School of Classical Studies in Greece. Lear often worked in line and wash, a technique that appeals to Pearce “because it is so important to have a very good drawing for a painting to work.”
Boy in Boat, Gloucester, after Homer is a
Pearce copy of a painting by Winslow Homer
No Do-Overs in Watercolor or Diplomacy
Why watercolor? The medium appealed to Pearce because of the degree of difficulty. “I’ve always liked a challenge,” he said, “and the challenge in watercolor is that unexpected things happen. You must come up with solutions. That’s what I did throughout my career as a Foreign Service Officer. In diplomacy, there are no do-overs. You work with the situation is it is, not as you would like it to be. Well, there are no do-overs in watercolor, either. You need to find a solution for whatever emergency crops up.”
It’s Not the Photo, It’s the Feeling
Inspiration often starts with a special feeling about a subject. “Conveying that feeling is key,” he said. “You are not in the business of conveying literal reality; a photo will do for that. You are in the business of expressing what is special, what emotion you felt, what drew your attention to a subject. I might go somewhere and do a little plein air sketch in my notebook. Or I might do a quick drawing. Or I might not have a sketchbook with me, and just stare hard at a scene, thinking what it is about it that draws me in. A photo can help trigger those remembered impressions when you get back to your studio. But it’s not the photo, it’s the feeling.
“Since I am conveying my interpretation of the subject, I reserve the right to rearrange it, change colors, move objects around to suit the composition, add or subtract people and things. If a tree is in the way, I take it out. I do whatever serves the overall purpose of conveying what I want to convey.”
On the Mall, watercolor sketch
First Things First
“In Algeria, I spent hours in the cold and rain traipsing around the Roman military outpost of Tiddis. I photographed, sketched, and wrote down inscriptions galore. I painted one of the monuments, translated its Latin abbreviations, and explained its story on my website and blog. This – combining painting with a search for knowledge and understanding of the past – is what I love best.”
Pearce noted the one thing archaeology, diplomacy, and painting all have in common is the importance of expertise. “If you take the time and make the effort to learn a foreign language well, and to understand the history and culture of the place where you are assigned, you will be able to serve the U.S. better as a diplomat – both advocating for U.S. interests locally, and explaining to Washington the best way to advance those interests. Similarly, if you take the time and make the effort to learn to draw, to work with color, and to think through a composition, with all its different tones and values, you will be able to interpret your subject better for the viewer of the painting.”
“Planning is important, “he said. “You start with an idea. You need to know why you are drawn to a particular subject and what it is you want to express about it. So, you work on the concept first. Then, once you know what you’re trying to express, you work out the elements of composition that will best convey it. If the composition is lousy, the painting will be lousy. I usually start with at least one, and more often several, monochrome value studies. Most of the painters I admire place great emphasis on this preliminary work.
“First you figure out the orientation – landscape or portrait or square. You figure out the eye level/horizon line. You decide where the focal point will be, usually the area of greatest contrast. You outline the main shapes and connect them where possible. And you work out where the light will be – the darkest darks, the midtones, the lightest lights.”
Pearl House, Orr's Island - value sketch and final
On the Value of the Value Sketch
Pearce added, “If something is not working in the composition, the value sketch is the time to fix it, not when you’re in the middle of your final piece. I often, but not always, will do additional small practice sketches of figures or significant details. While painting, I prop the monochrome value sketch up nearby and refer to it more than any reference photo. Photos can be useful memory joggers, but they are generally not good roadmaps for paintings. There is too much distracting detail. In the value sketch you distill the scene to its essentials.
“Only after all these preliminaries do you do a drawing on watercolor paper and paint the actual picture. If you’ve worked out concept, orientation, horizon line, composition, main shapes, and values, you can paint with confidence -- even if you make changes, which I often do. The preparatory steps take time, but it’s time well spent.”
On Finding the Time
Over the course of his career, Pearce served in eleven overseas posts throughout Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. He was U.S. Ambassador to Greece and Algeria, Consul General in Jerusalem and Dubai, Assistant Chief of Mission in Afghanistan, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He is sometimes asked how he found the time to create while working in senior-level diplomatic positions. “I had a fair amount of weekend time in Algeria because of the tense security situation,” he said. “But that is not always the case. My next job, Afghanistan, was nuts – we worked morning, noon, and night, every day. We had one day off, in principle, but even that often got interrupted. I used it to clean my quarters, buy food, and communicate with my family. If I had some time left over, and there wasn’t usually much, painting was my main form of relaxation. I painted the mountains of the Hindu Kush, which I could see from my balcony, and I painted the Laughing Doves and Mynah birds who visited that same balcony. And I painted some Afghan faces, like Muhammad Nur in the painting I call Green Turban.”
A photo of Nur appeared in the U.S. military paper Stars and Stripes after Nur’s son murdered four French NATO soldiers in Afghanistan’s Kapisa Province. Pearce was riveted by the hard, steady look in his eyes. “For me, those eyes told the story of Afghanistan. And by a happy accident of the paint, I captured them well. I kept that painting in my office in both Kabul and Washington as a reminder of just how hard the job was.”
President Barack Obama nominated Pearce to be the U.S. Ambassador to Greece after his service on Afghanistan.
Greece: Art as an Adjunct of Diplomacy
During his posting in Athens from 2013-2016 Greece was beset by simultaneous economic, political, and refugee crises. Since Greece is an important friend and ally of the United States, it was an especially challenging time at the embassy. And for Pearce it became the high point in his artistic development. “It was a dream,” he said. “So much to see, so much to draw and paint.”
He hung a few paintings in his residence. People started to inquire about buying them, but the ambassador politely turned the queries aside. “It was a very firm ethics rule that you could not use your official position to promote your personal financial interests.”
Meanwhile, his public affairs counselor urged the ambassador to open a Twitter account to amplify U.S. policy. The counselor further suggested Pearce share some of his paintings of Greece so that the account offered readers more than U.S. official pronouncements. “I was skeptical,” Pearce said, “but I did it and the response was very positive. Greeks are very proud of their history and culture, so many were delighted to see the U.S. ambassador making that culture the subject of his watercolors. My artwork became a useful adjunct to our public diplomacy. “
Pearce’s favorite subject was the Acropolis in Athens, which he painted many times. But he also depicted many other scenes in travels around the country.
Roussanou Monastery in Meteora, Greece; and
View of the Acropolis from the Temple of Hephaistos
Bringing to Life Worlds That No Longer Exist
What next?
“I’ve done a fair number of paintings lately of Maine and Southern California, because that is where I happen to live now. But I would like to do more in the future on historical memory and revisit, in painting, the places that made the greatest impact on my life and career.
"A favorite watercolor was acquired by a colleague who worked with me in the Near East Bureau of the State Department. She bought it in 2020 after I did a group show with a several other Foreign Service artists at the headquarters of the American Foreign Service Association in Washington DC. The painting was Kuwait Water Carrier and Donkey, Circa 1929, After Photo by Dickson.
“I served in Kuwait 1988-1991, and I had read the books of the British Political Resident Col. H.R.P. Dickson. Leafing through one, I came across a small, grainy black-and-white photo of a street in Kuwait taken by Dickson in about 1929. It showed a world that no longer exists – watercarriers and donkeys, women in black carrying water to their homes in water jugs balanced on their heads, black waterspouts poking out of great mud walls, a badgir (Persian: ‘wind-catcher’, a wind-grabbing rooftop tower used to cool Kuwaiti homes before air conditioners), and a small street mosque with its short, square minaret. I had fun researching the scene, then bringing the old photo to life in watercolor and writing an explanatory key on the painting.”
Kuwait Water Carrier and Donkey, circa 1929
One subject Pearce painted several times was the Grand Mosque of the Umayyads in Damacus, the oldest extant monumental mosque. His Minaret of Issa depicts a corner of the vast structure. Local legend holds that Jesus (Arabic: ‘Issa) and a heavenly host will descend from heaven to this minaret before the Day of Judgement to fight the Anti-Christ.
Pearce has built a collection of turn-of-the-19th-century stereo cards featuring scenes of the Holy Land, including Palestine. He drew on these for watercolors of Jerusalem and old Jaffa, the primary port of entry for emigrants in Ottoman-era Palestine. In Smithsonian photo collections he found a black and white photo of a kaak seller in the central market of pre-1948 Jaffa. Kaak is a tasty, ring-shaped bread sold widely in the Middle East. Pearce knew it well from Beirut. That Smithsonian photo inspired his painting Jaffa Kaak Seller, Circa 1940.
Jaffa Kaak Seller, circa 1940
“His work is different. That’s why we wanted to showcase him.”
When Pearce left government service in November 2016, he began to pursue his artwork full time. He and his wife moved to Maine, bringing him full circle. He established a website and began fulfilling requests from friends and colleagues for prints. He was profiled in Bowdoin magazine and the Portland Press Herald. The Thos. Moser showroom and gallery in Freeport, Maine exhibited his paintings. Showroom manager Steve Wyman told the Press Herald that Pearce’s paintings reminded him of many old-school artists who made grand tours of Europe and occasionally drifted into the Middle East as part of their art education.
“But he wasn’t touring the world,” Wyman said. “He was working to keep the United States safe. It’s interesting looking at the detail and brushwork that he is getting from watercolors and thinking about him painting in all those locations. His career was spent in a lot of hot spots around the world, and clearly some of them were warring countries that have experienced upheaval and conflict. His work is definitely very different from a lot of work we see in Maine. That is why we wanted to showcase him.”
Meanwhile, with grandchildren in California, Pearce and his wife bought a condo in San Clemente, a town whose architecture famously mimics the Mediterranean’s. He joined the San Clemente Art Association and began to receive additional recognition for his watercolors, including an SCAA Best in Show award in 2020 for Winter Beach Walk, a First Place in Watercolor in 2022 for Looking Out, and another First Place in Watercolor in 2025 for El Camino Real.
He joined the American Watercolor Society, the National Watercolor Society, the Transparent Watercolor Society of America, and the New England Watercolor Society as an associate. In 2022, his Christmas 1886 painting of a shipwreck at Portland Head Light was juried into the AWS online associates show. In 2023 his Donkeys Waiting for a Fare painting of the island of Hydra in Greece was selected for the 6th biennial 2023 Watercolor International show in Thessaloniki, Greece. His Roussanou Monastery painting was selected for the 7th Watercolor International biennial in Thessaloniki in 2025. His White Water was juried into the summer 2025 "Celebrating New England" show of the New England Watercolor Society. He has taken workshops with renowned watercolorists Keiko Tanabe, Michael Solevyev and George Politis.
Draw, Draw, Draw
Pearce’s advice for people just starting out: draw, draw, draw.
“It’s hard to have a good painting if the underlying drawing is flawed. You need to take the time to learn to draw reasonably well. Drawing is something that can be learned, but it does require practice. You need to understand the basics of perspective. Otherwise, your compositions will look out of whack.
“After leaning to draw, you need to take time to learn the basics of color theory. Many people think they know what there is to know about color; they know what colors they like and what colors they don’t like. I would say don’t fall into that trap. Winslow Homer didn’t. He was an avid student of color and color theory. That’s what inspired me to delve into it.”
Finally, he says, it’s all about practice. “You draw, you paint, you make a mess. You just do it. You get mad at yourself. You tear stuff up. But slowly, slowly you improve.”
Pearce and his wife Leyla divide their time between Maine and Southern California. His work can be viewed online at www.daviddpearce.com and at the Thos. Moser gallery and showroom in Freeport, ME.
