My sister, Barbara became a young widow at age twenty-nine. She had two children she had to raise by herself. After many years, she married a widower named Reid. They had a delightful time together. She felt the love and fulfillment she had missed for so long. After about thirteen years, Reid suddenly passed away. The day he died, I started painting this portrait. I hope it gives my sister some comfort and some wonderful memories of the past.
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My daughter is really into fingernail polish. She loves to do all kinds of designs with it. People who visit her end up with exotic fingernails and toenails. If you go to her house you’ll see quite a collection of nail polish containers.
I’ve done this painting by breaking everything down into shapes, then matching colors.
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This painting was done exclusively with the primary colors — in other words, I used plain red, plain yellow and plain blue. All the colors were mixed with them alone. The glass, apple and metal pieces were done by looking at the objects and finding the shapes I saw in them. After that, I painted those shapes in the colors they actually were.
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I was asked to do an art demonstration for the Southside Art League in Greenwood, Indiana. I decided to paint with only the primary colors — red, yellow and blue. I also explained that the picture should be broken down into shapes. Here’s how it turned out.
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This painting is of the Scripps Pier in La Jolla, California. It has several art techniques — First, there are complimentary colors — the orange sand against the blue shadow which gives the painting a zing. There is a big contrast between the shadow and light. Next is linear perspective. There is a vanishing point in the window at the end of the pier. All of the lines come from that. The pillars go further to the right the closer they get. There is atmospheric perspective. The closer pillars are larger on the page. The people in the foreground are larger than the ones out in the waves. The atmospheric and linear perspective give depth to the painting. There is vertical and horizontal rhythm — vertical in the pillars and horizontal to the waves.
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I made this video because so many artists don’t know about the anatomy of the face. I’ve tried to show an easy way to draw a portrait with some fun ideas to help in the process.
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I love doing paintings of cars and of buildings. This one portrays late afternoon. There are a lot of reflections on the vehicles and in the store windows. I’ve used atmospheric perspective — the car on the left is bigger, giving the illusion of depth. The one behind it seems further back. When I did this piece, I broke the painting down into the shapes of each color or value, then painted them in. It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
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I grew up loving Annette Funicello and the Beach Party movies. They all seemed so magic. I also loved listening to The Beach Boys and their songs about surfing and being with their girlfriends on the ocean. It all sounded so magical to a young kid living in Utah. I didn’t think I’d ever make it to the ocean. Since then I’ve been to the Pacific and Atlantic many times, have been in the Bahamas and on the North Sea coast in Belgium. Those times were really fun, but I never felt that magic . . .
Until Labor Day weekend. I was visiting my daughters in San Diego. We went to La Jolla, but there wasn’t a parking space anywhere and the beach was really crowded. We finally parked on a hill and walked down to the ocean. There was a pier there. I found out later it was the very famous Scripps Pier where well known photographers do their work. As we walked along the sand I saw people having fun surfing, soaking up the sun and just walking along. I don’t know what happened, but I FINALLY FELT IT!!! The magic came. This painting is my impression of the feel that day. I hope you feel the sun, hear the waves and the seagulls, feel the wet sand under your feet, and most of all, I want you to have butterflies in your stomach like I did.
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