Artist Biography
The artist, Thomas (Tom) Lynott, is a retired educator who taught and counseled students in Illinois, Idaho, and Oregon during his 41 year career.
Thomas brings a love of the outdoors, fly fishing, and the appreciation of man and nature with its inherent beauty; to his artworks and note cards. Working in mediums such as wood, leather, paint, pencil and highlighters has allowed a wide range of texture and scope in his art.
A long time love of the outdoors and family camping activities has been a logical lead-in to artistic endeavors for the artist. An appreciation of the endless variety and color of wood led Tom to develop a mastery of hand tool carving, painting, and subsequent presentation of wildlife carvings. An avid flytyer and fly fisherman, Tom enjoys carving wood into many varieties of trout and warm water fish as well as songbirds and other varieties such as owls and hawks- often viewed and studied on fishing and hiking trips.
Many of Tom’s carvings utilize woods such as Jelutong, Basswood, and Tupelo. Presentations of the carvings take advantage of “found” wood gathered during hiking and fishing trips taken in the Northwest. Burled wood is a favored type for settings with Tom’s fish carvings.
The artist feels that the varied grain and wood patterns found in burled wood closely parallels the beauty of the movement and variety of shapes and colors in trout streams.
Step 1 - Draw the fish on the selected wood
Step 2 - Carve the fish based on the drawing
Step 3 - Add color and design the setting
Most of his carvings are life-sized and the artist often has received photos of customer caught fish from which he creates a carving to commemorate the customer’s memory of the fishing trip.
Additional mediums the artist enjoys working with include acrylics, pens, and highlighters in paintings available as prints as well as note cards. Surface carving wood and leather is also a material Tom enjoys creating with. The artist likes the character achieved with carving faces in leather.