Sometimes I’m very emotional when I do a painting. The woman I painted this for asked me to do it. It was based on a photo of her and her husband. Two days after the picture was taken, her husband passed away unexpectedly.
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This is a painting of a butterfly in my wildflower garden. The background is vague, placing the focus on the butterfly. The largest flowers appears to be closest, while the smallest feels furthest back. These techniques give the illusion of depth.
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I believe women should be portrayed as intelligent, sensitive human beings. I have tried to do this with my portrait of Shauna. She is college educated. She is the mother of two wonderful sons.
The most important part of the painting is her eyes. The viewer will notice sunlight coming from the right side illuminating the area above her cheek bone and forehead. The green grass in the background complements the color in her face.
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In 1904 Claude Monet did a series of paintings called “London, The Houses of Parliament.” He did them as the sun set, one was subtitled “Sun Breaking Through the Fog” and another called “Stormy Sky.” He wanted to show what the air and sky looked like under differing conditions.
Ninety-two years later, my wife and I traveled to Britain with our parents on a journey of discovery. We had researched where our ancestors were born and visited the very villages they called home. During part of the trip we went to London. I’ve painted my mother standing on the bridge looking at the same view Claude Monet saw. Obviously I’m no Claude Monet, but my mother and I felt the same magic he did those many years before.
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Whenever I do a drawing or painting, I’m much more interested in shapes and values. Instead of thinking of specific objects I see chunks of the same value or color. I draw them in and fill them with their value. I do the same thing with my paintings. This method creates a much more pleasing effect.
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It was about 1965 or 1966. We were hiking in the Wasatch Mountains. I was there with Cory Massey, Vaughn Brady, Dave Love and Scott Campbell. Life was simple then. We had just pulled some kind of naughty prank. Our worry back then was if Russia would launch nuclear missiles at us. The Civil Rights Movement had started, but we didn’t know much about it. LBJ was president. There was a war in Vietnam, but at that point most of the country supported it.
Life changed. Now, almost fifty years later, most of our parents have died. Both Vaughn’s and Scott’s fathers had been killed in car accidents. Vietnam had come and gone. 9/ 11 is a decade in the past. All of us are grandparents. Life doesn’t have that same happy magic. What has changed?
I’ve tried to give the illusion of the light going from the left to the right. Shadows are blue, light has a yellow tint. The background is vague to give the feeling of long ago . . .
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