Set of Landscape Pencil Drawings, 5 18 x 24 Drawings

I intend my art to inspire environmental stewardship.  Some seems to be of environmental damage and others of environmental beauty.  These pencil images are of the San Antonio River (or in the case of the faucet, the Edward's Aquifer) and its tributary San Pedro Creek from near the headwaters to down south where the streams have consolidated themselves into the San Antonio river.  

Study, Landscape Oil, Cotulla Road to Lake ` 14 x 17

This was a study of a landscape -- to better understand how to paint in oil under Janice Hindes, who is a fan of both John Carlson and Charles Slovek and who studied under Richard Schmid.  I look always for a spiritual narrative it seems, and a road always seems to provide one.

The painting was primarily from a reference picture taken near Cotulla with my compositional additions.

 

Pencil Study, 18 x 24, Road to the Pond, Cotulla

Portrait, Lefty Oil on Canvas

The concept of this painting was to attempt to capture in paint the personality and spirituality of this fellow.  How do you capture personality and spirituality?  It is a matter of bringing the paintbrush out one day at a time, and I am grateful for how well it turned out, and I thank Janice Hindes for her suggestions.  It is a "cheese smile," but it is Lefty's cheese smile.  I wanted to capture a representation of a spiritual person so that I and others can remember those qualities that he had and to be inspired.  Perhaps this is exactly what all portrait artists want to do.

Small Pastel, Tree of Life `17 x 14

I wanted to capture the beautiful flow and harmony of this piece of rotting wood on the forest floor.  Another opportunity to find spirituality in the beauty of nature, this time, more microscopically. 

This was an early pastel piece from 2012.  It was a challange to create details and have all the details relate to one another.  Values with pastels are always difficult for me the beginner.  Most of it seems to hang together and I see some small harmony and sound composition in it.


It is about decay and regeneration.  Perhaps how the rot of the past can be built upon for the future.  

Oil Landscape, Barbed Wire in Ice 14 x 11

 

I wanted to depict the cold solitude of the Texas Panhandle.

This piece was completed from a reference picture I took on a car trip to Colorado.  I had supervision from Gloria, an North East Independent School District Adult Ed art instructor.  The perspective lines came from Professor Hua from University of the Incarnate Word, and the deep blue sky came from Janice Hindes, my instructor from the Coppini.  These influences all rattled around as I painted this.

The coldness and the desolation seem to make this a favorite piece of my Texas native friends.  

Landscape Pastel of Ten Mile Range (2011) ~12 x 14

What I hoped to do was to use pastels to capture the south-facing, landscape of Ten Mile Range and Dillon Lake in Summit, Co. CO. 

The method was to apply pastels in considerable detail -- as it was a small canvas.  Mostly this was an early plein air piece, although the morning sun seems to create racing shadows and the clouds too, seem to be coming or going.  Some, for sure, was completed with a reference photograph.

I have been drawn to the beauty and spirituality of nature from my first art efforts.   Enthusiasm.  From the Greek, "filled with God" -- yes, I remain enthusiastic about having fun with pastels and grateful for those who give of their time to give me suggestions.