French Pastries

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My wife and I went on a trip to Britain.  We travelled the whole island.  On the last full day we were at Dover.  We went to a pub for lunch.  On a countertop was a brochure with a Renoir painting on it.  I love Renoir, so I grabbed it.  It advertised a round-trip ticket on the hovercraft from Dover to Calais in France.  I hadn’t been to France.  When I saw the price, I  was sold.  It was 8 pounds.  We hurried to the port and bought tickets.  Unfortunately, my mother fell down and broke her kneecap.  Still, she wanted to go.  This picture shows Mom sitting with her sore leg straight out.  She and Norene are eating pastries.  We were waiting in the glass enclosed bus stop.

Note the reflected light on the side of Norene’s face.  Norene and the gentleman by her only have one leg visible.  That is because the others are in shadow.  There is no detail on his face.   Your mind fills it in.  There is a reflection of a car  which gives the illusion of glass behind them.

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Family Reunion

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Family Reunion.jpg

This is a remembrance of a family get-together in my father-in-law’s back yard in Utah.  I have a hard time sitting in the sunlight for a long period of time, and Utah is not known for being heavily wooded.  However, his yard is beautifully landscaped and it was fun to be together with people I love.

I have been called an impressionist.  This painting was done in an impressionistic method  —  it gives the feeling or impression of a moment in time.  You can see the people and the place they are at, but it is not photorealist.  I have portrayed the persons by basic colors and shapes.  Your mind is free to do the rest.  Besides, it is very hard to put much detail in such small spaces.  Also there is atmospheric perspective.  With the placement of things, the closer things look larger, while things further away are smaller.  I have also portrayed things so that they look like the viewer is looking down on the scene.

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Viennese Waltz

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When my wife and I were a young married couple we danced in the Southern California Regional Dance Festival. It was in the Rose Bowl. There were 8,000 dancers. Our group did two dances, the minuet and the viennese waltz. We wore fancy clothes. We both had powdered white wigs. My wife wore a gold satin gown and I had a gold jacket, I had white, long stockings that went to my knees, short pants, and buckles on my shoes. She enjoyed twirling around and her skirts blossomed open.

When I painted this flower it reminded her of her skirts, thus the name of the painting. Note the contrast  —  the white petals against the dark green background. Also you’ll see different colors on the petals  —  yellow from the sunlight, blue reflecting the sky, and of course, the red that is naturally there.

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Blue Eyes Portrait

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I like to do portraits that fill the canvas with the person’s face.  I want the viewer to feel the personality of the subject.

Notice the eyes  —  the pupil has a highlight and the bottom of the iris does, too.  That makes the person look alive.  The bottom lip always has a highlight, too, because it is smooth and shiny.  There are highlights in the hair.  You can see spots of blue, brown and light green.  The gold necklace has highlights to give it a sparkle.

Don’t you think she’s interested in you?

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The North Sea

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North Sea.jpg

When my daughter and her husband lived in Cologne (Koln) Germany my wife and I enjoyed visiting them there. They would take us on exciting trips to fun places like Stockholm, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. One of our most fun days was spent on the North Sea in Belgium. We had a picnic on the beach and we enjoyed playing with our three grandchildren there.

This painting shows our daughter, Jennifer, with her baby Natalie. My wife, Norene, is seen in the distance with Zach and Ashley. I have tried to give the appearance of water by reflecting the blue sky and the three people who are wading. I have not painted much detail. I prefer painting the basic shapes I see which allows the mind to fill in the rest.

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Knife Painting

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One day my wife announced to me that I was going to do a knife painting.  I said “Oh really?”  She had this still life all set up  and my canvas was placed on the easel.  She handed me my pallette knife.  I was an obedient husband.  I did the painting.

There is absolutely no brushwork on this piece.  I applied all of the paint with the knife.  There is an interesting texture to it.  I could lay some of the paint very smoothly with the back of the knife.  Other places had ridges, like the blossoms.  If you’re an oil painter I recommend you try this method once in a while.  It’s fun.

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Long Long Ago

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My father and his brother delighted their families by playing the left hand in one key and the right hand in another one. It was very dissonant, but hilarious. We really had to beg to get Daddy to play it, but when he did, we all about died laughing! This is probably my last memory of him before he ended up in the hospital and died.

I painted it so it would seem like a memory, rather than trying to look photorealistic. The underpainting of his skin was done in green, then the pinkish color of his skin came through. His shirt was done in patches of white to add to that feeling.

He is playing “Long, Long Ago”. I really miss him.

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