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.