Self Portrait

11 x 14" Oil and Pastel on Wood

Grandpa's Dining Room

9 x 12" Oil on Wood

Grandpa's dining room. My Aunt Joanna got really worked up when I didn't dry the table after I washed it. So for her I polished it to a high gloss and added a bowl of fruit so she would be able to sleep that night.

Three Men in a Tub

36 x 48" Oil on Canvas

There are two things I will always be. Firstly I am terrible at spelling and, two, highly experimental.

So this painting is highly experimental. Between the sanding, layering, glazing, more sanding I found people appearing in my painting. The more of them I painted the more seemed to pop out. To me it's Jesus and the Three Men in the Tub, Igor and some on lookers. I don't now maybe I shouldn't say what I think, you know let you decisde as the viewer. Well, I did, what can you do?

Brad's Birthday Cake

9 x 12" Oil on Board

Brad insisted that I make him a cake. He knew how bad it would look but that it would taste good. So here were his specifications: Strawberry cake with pecan frosting in between the two layers. Frost the top with chocolate and walnuts.  I forgot the candles so I used match sticks but cretainly not 42. This year Brad is 7.

Riveting Conversation

9 x 12" Oil on Wood

My mother in law took us out for our anniversary. I look over and there she was snoozing away. I thought it was so funny. She is a busy woman and anytime she sits down she falls asleep.

Between

Between

5" x 7"

Acrylic on Illustration Board

Blue Dobins

Oil on Canvas

I thought I had put this on already but I hadn't. I have such a huge body of work and I have a blog, deviant art, facebook and now I'm working on a website. And even with all of that I don't have all of my paintings (and other things) on the internet. This painting is one of my favorites. Sometimes I feel like I'm looking at my own work third person style. After a couple of weeks (or a couple of years) I look back on it and say "Maybe You were on to something Self".  About a month ago when I was "90 year old grandpa sitting" I stumbled across the same type of painting style one night. I'll try and put that one on following this one.

Relationships

Paint, color, smears together making itself into something other than itself. I find that it is rarely okay to use a pure pigment in its original state. Only as an accent. Primary only means the beginning. Must be molded and mixed into something else.

Walk with me

Holding hands

Discussing the honesty

In and of itself

How much does the pigment want to integrate with other colors?
And when mixed too much it slips into oblivion and unifies but not always into something beautiful. Often times into something truly ugly.
This is where the brush becomes a magic wand. It can create beauty or great ugliness.
But it is really the painter behind the wand. How well does the painter know themselves?
Is the painter overbearing or pleasant? Does the painter mix well with others? Does the painter want to integrate or retain its original state? Philosophically speaking how well does a painter want to know themselves?
Clasp hands together to unify themselves, or at odds, hands the greatest distance from each other?
And do we as painters hold tight to other painter creators and loose ourselves or retain our pure color pigment and add an accent to the collective?
Painters feel this but not all face it or want to articulate it.
We are not separate from each other, not separate from the brush, not separate from the surface, not separate from the pigments and elements we mix together.
We are one with everything.
There needs to be unity or we are not creators and we implode.

My Cigar Box Pochade

I love my box. I use it all of the time. I figured out a way to attach a larger palette to it with another bungee chord so that I can mix larger "messes" of paint (I'll have to take a photo of that ). I like the small palette too, though. It's nice for plein air and minimal color combinations. But of course, as you can see, I also use it for a lot of colors anyway. I'm of several minds as you can tell.

Corona Del Mar

8 x 10 Oil on Canvas Board

Linda

9 x 12 Oil on Prepared Wood
I painted Linda at Randy Higbee's Open Studio last Wednesday.

Amber

12 x 16 Oil on Canvas

A portrait I did for Odd Nerdrum's online competition.

Onions

9 x 12 Oil on Primed Wood

Berch Tree

10 x 10 Oil on Prepared Bristol Paper

The Dog Bed

12 x 12 Oil on Prepared Paper

My little dog Wren has a little dog bed in the livingroom. She spends most of her time there when she is not pacing around the house aimlessly.

Copper Tea Kettle

10 x 10 Oil on Prepered Bristol Paper

I found this tea kettle at the thrift store as well for the small price of  $2.00. Copper is so beautiful. Every color can be found in it depending on its age and how it's been taken care of.

La Signora caffettiera

8 x 10 Oil on Canvas Panel
I found this esspresso maker at the thrift stor for $5.00.  It's awesome. The water boils in the bottom, filters through the grounds in the middle, and comes out of a little spout in the top.

Silver Tea Kettle

8 x 10 Oil On Primed Wood

I use this in conjunction with my coffee press.

Starbucks Christmas Coffee Press

9 x 12 Oil On Canvas (Series: Tea And Coffee)

Fruit

9 x 12 Oil on Linen Panel

I love to paint fruit. Especially citrus.

Random thoughts that should be wondered about……….

Journal entry on 4/27/2010

I think in abstract thought. A lot of symbolism and no real grounded movement. The gravitaion to unusual thinking causes a rash of random thinking and possibilities for new ideas to enter. A sort of portal for invention. I walk a fine line between reality and something else. My artwork is reflective of this type of layering. There is a lot of space between symbols. People tend to focus on the visually observed but the truth of the matter is that matter is one solid form with a vast amount of space around it. Read between the lines because there is more to be seen. Where the spirits live and what else lives there we haven’t discovered yet but there is something we should be intuiting and looking for.

Grandpa's Toys

Grandpa made these toys a long time ago and gave them to me when he outgrew his dollhouse phase. They have been broken and repaired several times. I finally found a brilliant use for them.

Untitled

Gouache and Pastel on Wood and Bottles
Study after Degas

Camping Coffee Pot

8 x 10 Oil on Wood Panel

Radioflyer

Oil on Wood Panel 9 x 12

Gently Cries

Light turns to dark
-Dissemination-
Translucent from Opacity
-Disintegration-
From the outside in
-Oblivion-

Leaves

l collected a bunch of leaves and wow how they turned abstract and more colorful than I had initially envisioned them.

My Studio

Yosemite at Twighlight

My painting of Yosemite. It's quiet and beautiful there.

After Turner

Turner, also, truly amazing so made a study of his work as well.

Boats after Monet

Monet was brilliant so I made a case study of his work.