Capturing The Northern Neck
Bill Martz’s eyes move slowly across the Northern Neck landscape. They fix on a heron prowling the edge of a marsh, or linger on a tree line near the water’s edge, or a tangle of crab pots most of us walk past and never seem to notice.

Artist Bill Martz has been capturing the beauty of the Northern Neck on canvas for more than a quarter century.
But Bill notices, and quickly the sketch pad comes out of the old camouflage jacket and soon he’s intently capturing the essence of what he has just seen, pencil moving rapidly across paper. Often, that inspiration becomes a beautiful oil painting that brings instant recognition and a warm sense of awe from those who love the Chesapeake Bay.

Bill and Theresa Martz moved to the Northern Neck in 1978, where they immediately fell in love with the people, the water and the natural setting that remained unchanged over many generations. For an artist, it’s hard to imagine a better place. Years of traipsing through fields and marshes, listening to watermen tell their tales, and simply quiet reflection on the majestic beauty of the area’s wild creatures led to an impressive body of work.

In late 2003 his published a limited edition book, The Northern Neck Illustrated Journal. It contains 135 of Bill’s drawings and four color reproductions. It sold more than half of its 1,043 copies in the first five weeks after its release.

Currently, Bill is working on a series of oil paintings that continue, and expand his goal of representing the Northern Neck on canvas. In fact, these works tend to take the viewer beyond the borders of the painting.

This year, Bill is offering two limited edition giclee prints on canvas, one of which is pictured above. Giclee printing is the most up to date process of art reproduction, technology that provides incredible detail, crisp contrast, intense color and depth not possible with traditional lithography.

BillMartz.com is a new Web site created to promote the most recent Martz offerings. In addition to checking out the two new giclees on canvas, limited to 50 of each, readers can click on “history” and see a small sampling of Bill’s work, and how he works on location.

For more information about Bill and his work, please visit his Web site or call Theresa at 529-7486 or toll-free at 1-800-248-7281.