Monarch on Sunflower

 

So as the year is starting up -- perhaps I can do a little better job of painting more frequently -- and gracefully.  

Its a New Year -- What Will Happen in 2024? Start with Playa

 

Hello patient blog reader, at least I hope you have returned to my page.  Let me show you a painting that I did for the San Antonio Art League and Museum, and that was accepted by the Juror Harold Joiner who is the gallery Directory at the Archway Gallery in Houston.  I got to hear him speak for a few minutes a few nights back and he was explaining what his criteria were for accepting paintings -- I sure enough though he was talking about this painting.  The theme of the show was Texas Landscape.  I tried to personify two major factors of nature in the Texas plains:  water and sun.  Of course, there are the towns -- and the agriculture.  The playa are remarkably important in recharging groundwater and in providing habitat for the region.  There are about 20,000 playa in the Texas high plains alone.  The style of the sun is after Hundertwasser, Friedrich Stowasser, an Austrian artist.  In fact I used his features as I styled the sun.  The playa face is from Benny Andrews, also an artist, who was recently featured here in San Antonio at the McNay Art Museum.  I considered originally making this artwork three dimensional in the Andrews' style.  

If you are in San Antonio, head down to the King William Area and enjoy the exhibit.  SAN ANTONIO ART LEAGUE & MUSEUM - HOME (saalm.org)

May you be Safe, Happy, Healthy, and Live with Ease every day.  John

Old and New

 

Well -- not in a creative moment, but in a practical one -- I have added this 18x24 painting to my Etsy page listings.  

The things I see on the doctor's walls help me to realize that this simple, monochrome outline of a mustang might be something that will fit a space -- perhaps a youngster, or an oldster.  Maybe.

This is perhaps the doodling around that is keeping me from more 'serious' play.  Yes indeed.  It may deserve a marker just for that point.  Hmmm, maybe less of this, although it is fine and accurate.

 

gosh this picture was a bit hard to find.....the piece on the Ogallala Aquifer after the style of Hundertwasser.   So -- this art tells more about water in the mid-west.  It does have a story, and a bit of a mystery.  Those are of course playa's, which seem to recharge the aquifer in a disproportionate amount, to their size(s).  There are of course the irrigation fields operating under unsustainable water laws...and the forces of sun and water.  It was a fun start -- into a new way of storytelling. 

So nice they changed the name of Ft Benning to that of a couple -- LtGen Moore and his wife Julia.  This is a story about community and family's contribution to our ability to succeed in our geopolitical efforts.  It SO resonated with my family and my upbringing.  https://www.fortmoore.com/

On this mother's day -- after these 50 years since her passing, it is very special to run across this today.

Namaste --

Five Year Update

Howdy!  

Thanks for being here for a moment or two.

I saw some collage work done by Benny Andrews https://www.bennyandrews.com/here in San Antonio at the McNay in January of 23 and got together with some friends on a 'collage' date and made a collage after the style of Benny which is shown below the Hunter.  Benny makes his collages out of fabric which he twists around to the shape he needs and lets it sit in a resin until it hardens after which it appears he painted it with oil.  I loved the way the piece came together -- it had perspective -- as Benny's do, it had the texture and volume, and I think it had even more narrative than his pieces seemed to have.  My guitar teacher's piece uses guitar strings and the music streams out of her guitar in a lovely green bow.  She is wacky and her cat, Basura, is her foil...with bristling whiskers.  

The first piece was one of the highlights of my regular representational painting -- the photo was a selfie by Ashley Jones -- talented and creative, and she shared it out on FB.  For me the narrative here was the overlap with mask-wearing of covid, as in a protection mode we had all become accustomed to.  However, for me, she was even more-so the hunter -- as an Army officer and shooter, she is smart, dangerous and deadly while paradoxically being beautiful.  I am proud that this art was selected at the Texas Friends and Neighborshttps://www.irvingartscenter.com/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/ show in 2022 in Dallas.  Gosh time flies.

I think my art is moving away from the latter and toward the former.  Next blog entry will be about my practical art experiment about the Ogallala Aquifer https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/the-ogallala-aquifer.htmlin a Hundertwasser style.  https://www.hundertwasser.com/en/art/paintings  with a touch of information about what I have learned about the importance of playas.  

 

Namaste my friends.  John

The Caregiver Oil Painting

 This oil painting originated with the wonderful, loving kindness shown by Terri to my father-in-law.  She is his primary hospice nurse.  With her's and dad's permission I am painting a picture of her taking some of his vital measurements.  The reference photo is shown on the right and the painting in progress is shown below.  There is much more of a golden, Indian yellow sort of a flavor to it all.  The yellow really does bathe the room.  Maybe next time.  Maybe even a glaze in some areas.  Still some work to do, but I thought I would put a WIP here.  John

Enjoyed some Drawings -- Airplane Sketches

I have really enjoyed creating some airline sketches of faces recently.  There are a couple of them here in the blog...way back one of my cousin Guy.  A couple of others.  I will go ahead and add some as I get decent images of them.  Here is one of my niece and her daughter, grandniece Ari.  It is an 8x8 from Jan of 2018.

Two to Q - Agility 1

In photography class I thought agility photographs might be dynamic and captivating, but the difficulty was that there was too much noise and clutter in the background and the light wasn't quite like I wanted it to be.  Consequently I have a batch of older pictures that were possibilities for painting.  This is more like a study on canvas pad.  Here is a fellow with his dog...I have another I like more, Agility 2 is coming up.

What I like about agility is the saying it Takes 2 to Q -- that is to qualify both the dog and the handler must do their job.  I love that the best handlers never scold or become angry at their dogs.  Never.