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$1,500
This tennis shoe painting worked out pretty well. As good as the web is for looking at images, it doesn't provide the up-close and personal experience you need to see things as they really are. As you will note, the painting is 32" by 43", and if you load this image, it will look the same on your screen as a painting that is 12" by 14". Yet, if you saw them in real life, you would have quite different viewing experiences.
Private Collection
This is a pair of my old jungle boots from when I was flying airplanes in Vietnam. They had been sitting in the garage for years, and one day when I walked by and the sun was shining on them, it caught my attention. I ran into the house, grabbed my camera and took a number of shots from different angles. I decided to crop the boots to better fill the picture space. The red shoe laces were in the boots, and I elected to go with that.
Private Collection
Tennis shoes have such wonderful character, they are hard to ignore. But, as I write this (Oct 99), I realize it has been a couple of years since my last tennis shoe painting. I'm wondering where the time has gone. They have been on my mind, but I guess many other subjects have been on my mind also. There is so much to do and so little time!! This painting was commissioned by a couple that just bought a new home--and liked my tennis shoe paintings, but wanted something in green. OK, green it is.
$1,500
Some ideas take time to get on watercolor paper. I originally started thinking about this painting during the fall of 1999. During Christmas of 1999 my oldest son was home visiting, and I persuaded him to use his hand for a model. We stepped out on my deck, and I took a number of photos. I eventually got the film developed and threw the photos on a pile in the corner of my studio. A year and a half later I was filing photos into binders and came across the hand photos. I had been searching for something different to paint and immediately stretched a large sheet of watercolor paper. The painting was started on Thursday and finished on Saturday.
"Splashing In Puddles Of Water"
$1,500
I wear out a pair of tennis shoes every year or so. Then they become my yard shoes for another year. After they seem to have enough character, I take a few photos--that is what usually gets me into another tennis shoe painting.
"Crotaphytus Collaris, a Portrait"
Private Collection
Every summer I spend a good deal of time fly fishing various rivers and streams in western Colorado. One particular river hosts a plethora of Collared Lizards as well as hungry trout. Every year I take photos of the lizards I run across as I'm hiking up and down the river, and this last summer I happened upon this particular lizard whose head was more colored than usual. It seemed a good subject for a painting. As far as the painting is concerned, I took a great of time drawing the lizard, and then masked the entire lizard off. I painted the rock and background, removed the mask and then painted the lizard.
$750
I never know what will strike my fancy for a subject. One day I was looking at one of my tennis shoes with the laces all undone, and it struck me that I ought to do a painting. I found my camera, took a few photos and then got to painting.
$1,500
I don't know what exactly got me painting tennis shoes--maybe the shape and interesting things happening with the laces. Whatever, but I have loved each and every painting. They speak to me in many ways--the miles I've walked in those shoes, the life journey in those shoes, and maybe because they remind me of my childhood--I wore tennis shoes.
$1,000
I took a trip back to Wisconsin a few years ago and stopped at the Mississippi River Museum. As I was wandering around outside the museum, they had all manner of old steamboat engines displayed. I was struck by the pipes on the boilers and took a number of photos--one photo ended up in this painting.
Private Collection
It is funny how diiferent subjects attract your attention. My wife has decorated one of our guest bedrooms in a Teddy Bear theme. One day I was walking by the bedroom and glanced in and kind of did a double take. The light was shining through the bedroom window and creating a bright pattern on the Teddy Bears on the bed. It didn't take me long to find my camera and get a few images. This painting is now hanging in the Teddy Bear Room.
Private Collection
More of my teddy bear paintings. Someone once told me that I was a portrait artist, it was just that I did portraints of all kinds of things. I think I agree. Sometime when you paint things, you have to figure out how to paint the non-things in the painting. That was the case with this painting--I painted the teddy bears and then tried to figure out the background. It mostly works, but not my favorite.
"The Feeling I Knew the First Time"
$1,000
Life is an interesting journey. The "Stuffed Animal" theme pulled me several ways, my childhood, raising my children, and loving grandchildren. I don't care how old one gets, you can't do without stuffed animals. These rabbits, and the teddy bear in the background, live in our guest bedrooms--my wife would say they are part of the decor, I would say they are the friends that welcome guests into our home. This painting is on Arches 140#, cold press, and is 22"x30". My pigments are mostly Winsor Newton and Daniel Smith.
Private Collection
One of my good friends attended the Burning Man Festival this last September. I think they had 60,000 participants gathered in Nevada's Black Rock Desert to create Black Rock City, a community dedicated to art, self-expression, and self-reliance. He took a photo of his boot on the desicated and cracked desert floor. When I saw the photo, I asked if I could use it as a subject for a watercolor painting--he agreed, and this is the result.
Private Collection
This is Sophie, a King Charles Cavalier. She lives with my son Mike and family, and I get to hang out with her on occasion. Been thinking about this painting for a few months, and when the full sheet project popped up, seemed like a good time to get it done.
$1,000
Color seems to have attracted my attention lately. I chose to do this painting with a great deal of color, forgettting what the original subject colors were about. There is a certain freedom that comes with a departure from realism, but I wonder if one could get mesmerized and forget how to make a realistic painting. I wonder if you could descend into a purgatory of non-representational work that demands nothing other than the ability to do strange stuff
$1,000
A few years ago my wife and I took a trip to the northwest. We got up to the top part of Oregon and then drove down the coast. That coast line is pretty amazing--it almost defies imagination. As we were making our way down, we ran across this boat anchored in an inlet. I found a place to park and managed to get a number of images. Finally, one of those images made it on watercolor paper.
Private Collection
Flowers are an enigma to me--think there is something about them that doesn't work for me. Yet, every now and again, I find my way through a flower painting. But, being a stubborn watercolor artist, I never give up. This particular composition turned our relatively well. It was a keeper, and one of my teaching colleagues fell in love with it-and that is where it resides to this day.
Private Collection
A friend of mine was down in New Orleans and brought a photo back that kind of got my attention. This is one of my wife's favorite paintings, and it works for me also.
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