Tribute to a dear friend

Lost a dear friend that I had breakfast with for over 10 years.  Decided to memorialize him with what skills I have.

Horse of course

First time drawing a horse, came out pretty good I think.  Lots of nice comments from http://wetcanvas.com in the Wildlife and Animals forums.

Einstein

Love reading about this guy, so smart,  I wonder if he was one of us.

Steve Jobs

Had fun drawing Steve Jobs tonight.  Odds are you are probably viewing his picture on a device he is responsible for.

Neil Armstrong

One of my heroes growing up, Neil Armstrong was my subject this time. I often wondered what it must have been like just knowing that of all humans who have ever lived on this earth to be the first human to step onto another round ball in the sky that countless millions of people have stared up at in wonder. First of only a dozen humans ever to experience that. I hated to see his passing so I thought I'd honor him in picture. This was one of the harder ones I've done because of the nature of the suit. His expression can be seen as pure fear or just utter amazement. I like to think amazement.

Dog portrait

Did a dog portrait for someone that won a raffle.  Had fun doing this,  the dog has such a calm look on his face.

Daniel Craig

Love the Bond movies and what Daniel has brought to the character.  Enjoyed this quick study of him.

Paul Newman

Enjoyed Paul's work in film and racing.

President Reagan in profile

Love doing the profile type portraits, less to keep up with!   This was a very dark reference so I had to push around the values and contrast.

George Bailey

Favorite character of mine!

President Franklin D Roosevelt

Took on FDR today!

President Eisenhower

I did not know that he was the president that started NASA and DARPA.  I had always thought Kennedy.

President Roosevelt (Teddy)

Love drawing these presidents,  this one before my time, but cool mustache.

President George W Bush

Chose a picture that reflected the stress and hard times of his time as president.

President Johnson LBJ

Enjoy this time period in American history!

Fred Smith founder of FedEx

Did portrait of the founder of FedEx where I have worked for 31 years.

President Reagan pencil portrait

Tried to find a pose that was not so common of him.

President Nixon pencil portrait

Captured Nixon before his Watergate scandal.  Seems much happier.

Bill Clinton pencil portrait

Continuing my presidential theme.

President Kennedy in profile

Another president.  Just on a roll.  I enjoy doing these quick pencil sketches.

Abraham Lincoln pencil portrait

With all the election madness I decided to do a portrait of a real president!

Cloudscape

Got back into painting with oil after self portrait.  This is a work in progress but it's pretty close now.

Self Portrait

Decided to try another self portrait in oil this time.   16x20 on canvas.  Used my facebook profile as reference pic!

Pencil portrait of President Reagan!  My favorite President.

Commission in Pencil

Commission portrait in time for Christmas!

JFK pencil

Used to love this era and all the excitement of the new space program and the new age.  Decided to do a pencil of Kennedy.

The Selfie

Decided to try a self portrait, first time in a long time.

Another layer on "Partly Cloudy with Chance of Showers"

Oil 16x20:  Original painting had some drip marks from some linseed oil I was using in medium and decided to paint over them and enhance the painting.  Added the rain under the cloud and some other thunderheads in the background.   Haven't painted anything in about 9 months.  Felt good to have paintbrush in hand again.  Someday!

Is There Anybody Out There?

I was browsing some pictures from the #Hubble and saw some interesting pictures that looked like they would be a challenge and fun to paint.  Makes me stand in awe of our God who is as endless as we consider the universe to be.   I read recently where the known universe is 94 billion light years across!   That is 94 billion times 6 trillion miles!   Incredible!

Oil on canvas 48x24

Day at the Beach

Painted over my last post of the "Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Showers" with this one.  Just never liked the way the clouds came out.   Oil on canvas 16x20.  This canvas now has three paintings on it,  first was a Grand Tetons type scene, then the clouds and now the beach!

Partly Cloudy with Chance of Showers

Snapped a picture of the sky yesterday and put to canvas today.  Quick study oil on canvas 16x20.

Another Sky Painting

I love painting these sunsets, sunrises, whatever you see in there!

Evening Sky

Had a fun day outside on the patio painting this sky picture.

Deer head

Saw a painting by Justin Gaffrey of this deer head and decided to give it a go.  He uses very thick acrylic paint to build up a 3D effect.  I added texture for the antlers.

First Abstract

Trying something new today, first abstract.  Was fun working with color but the process can be never ending.  You must have an idea in mind before you start, otherwise you can just go and go.  Had color too thick at first and starting wiping down, as I did I liked the effect and then layers on pure color.  My thought process was to show movement from left to right ending with focal point at the red spot that is in the edge of blue area.  I also wanted the contrast do red and green as complimentary colors to add excitement and vibration.  I liked the ethereal cloud like effect and went on to paint a similar painting below of a Hubble inspired nebula in the LCM area of the Milky Way.

Self portrait for contest

Started on this self portrait for an contest that Jerry's Artarama is having this month.   Used a small mirror hanging off the side of my easel.  Not turned it in yet because I have much more to do in the next few days.  Have not had much time to work on it and I work in my garage trying to use natural sunlight but it's been so cold and dreary lately that I've had not had the time I'd like to work on it.  Done in Unison pastels and NuPastels on Canson paper.

Sunflowers Oil Painting + Butterfly

So I decided to go ahead and work on that sunflower painting today!  Got a good start this morning and will start again tomorrow.  My wife and oldest daughter stopped by a field close to a place called the Agricenter here in Memphis and snapped some photos of these beautiful sunflowers when they were in full bloom.  They do this every year and each year I stop by and take a look and some photos.  Just happened to catch a nice butterfly leaving a flower.  Thought it would make a nice painting, so this morning I got to work and knocked it out.  Was fun to paint and have some more to do to it but putting paintings on my blog always makes me want to go back and do some more!  This is a 16x20 oil on canvas.                                                                          
         

Motivation to Paint (Lack of)

I am in one of those non-creative times in my life where I don't feel like starting a painting because I don't think it will be up to my standards, so I just don't start!  Life has been so busy with work and daughters starting to college and driving that I just don't have energy to paint right now.   My dream job would be to have a small art studio/gallery in some resort town and just paint all day and meet like minded people who enjoy art for art.   Who knows, maybe after posting this I will go home and paint tonight!  I have a oil painting started of some sunflowers that my wife and I took photos of a few weeks ago.  I got the background all blocked in but just can't seem to get started on the flowers.

Avenue of Oaks

Commission painting of "Avenue of Oaks", a beautiful place in South Carolina. .  A lot going on in this painting and trying to do justice to the moss that hangs from the branches.  When I first saw the image to paint from I thought of that scene from the movie Forrest Gump where he was running with his leg braces and they started falling off.  This photo of the painting was not the final product.  The painting got delivered before I took one last photo.  At first I thought this would be too busy of a subject to paint but it actually was a lot of fun and I enjoyed working on it.  I started off by blocking in light and dark areas with acrylic paint and just simplified the grass and trees concentrating on the play of light in the tree branches and the road.
SOLD

Avenue of the Oaks

    

Portrait of Megan

Working on portrait of my oldest daughter Megan. Trying to soften some edges and correct the placement of eyes and mouth. Teeth are very difficult to get right. I once saw  where a famous painter stated. "A portrait is a painting of someone with something wrong with the mouth". It has been fun to paint but I've tried to stay too tight and causes me not to work with thin paint. I tend to push around small bits of paint instead of laying down good mixed color. Oh well, something to work on.! I may do this same painting in pastel.

Pastel of my Grandmother Addie Wilkins

Pastel on Canson paper approximately 16x20.

I  took a portrait class from Daniel Green at his annual summer workshop in his home in North Salem NY back in 2005.   He demonstrated a pastel portrait one evening from a live model that I was absolutely mesmerized with.  I have been using his techniques of marking off the head into four equal sections, using Nupastels to lay in the drawing and then working from dark to light with softer pastels.  I did this painting 4 or 5 years ago and have learned so much since then.  This was a quick painting to give my mother for Christmas.  My grandmother has since passed away but this painting hangs in my mom's home for her to remember how special and loving my grandmother was.  I also have my grandfather posted in this blog in another post.  We miss you MawMaw!

Redo of Abby

 Redo of the portrait of Abby. Spent a long time on this one!

Pastel of Don

Started this pastel of my step father. Haven't done a pastel in awhile. Was really fun getting back into it.

Pastel of Abby

Pastel on canson: Work in progress of my youngest daughter Abby. Doing the pastel as a study for an oil painting to come later.  Plan to paint all three daughters again. I have been studying with a very talented artist here in Memphis named Frank Morris who does astounding work.

http://www.frankmorrisportraits.com

My current goal is to become better at judging values and edges.

Cotton bolls

Oil 14x18: It "cotton pickin" time here in the south (Memphis area) and you find cotton everywhere. My wife decided to pick some cotton bolls branches and make an arrangement in a vase. This is my composition of the arrangement.  I couldn't pass up a chance to paint something that you just take for granted around here.  My mom has worked in the cotton business for about 50
SOLD
years.

Red Flowers (picked)

11x14 (canvas)  Reworked:  I just didn't like the last post of the red flowers on a summer day. Never got them to look like i wanted so I just (picked) them out and made it a field of smaller flowers!  I may try using the palette knife in the future for looser flowers as suggested on WetCanvas in the landscape forum.

Red flowers

11x14 oil on canvas: Just tried a small flower/landscape of some red flowers in a field. Enjoyed just putting all that color in there. Thought I'd paint a end of summer picture.

Barn commission

This is a painting from a photo a friend of ours ask me to paint of a barn where she grew up.  The photo was almost a sepia color due to its age so I had to put in my own interpretation of color.  The painting is 8x10 on panel and I'm going to paint a larger 16x20 for her as well.  This small one will go into a frame that is made from the actual barn wood.   SOLD

Finding time to paint

I seem to go through times when I'm all fired up to paint and create something new and other times when busy schedules, work stress or just plain being tired keeps me from painting.  I think about sometimes of all the paintings that are being missed out on by my laziness!   Some of my reluctance to paint is from the fear of "not being able to paint a masterpiece" each time I step up to the easel.   I guess my masterpiece will always be my "next" painting.  I read that somewhere and thought it was so true.  I think in the end that the process of painting is just that.  It's just a process and a journey to be enjoyed along the way.  Maybe I can inspire myself here to pick up that brush tonight when I get home from work!