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I did a show once based upon the song “America the Beautiful.” Each phrase in the song was represented by a painting. I went out in the fields of Indiana to do this one. If you look at the horizon you will see the sun setting. The sunlight backlights the weeds in the foreground. The sky is bright and the field has highlights of yellow, green and red. Also you can see shadow to contrast with the light. The idea behind this picture is to show the greatness of our land.
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This is a scene in Venice. If you look you can see the domes of the cathedral in the background. Of course this is a very impressionistic painting. I’ve never tried to actually paint as an impressionist. I just paint as I feel. It is something like singing versus reading printed word. I guess this is the “impression” of my own emotions. You can see people walking along while it rains.
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This is a scene in downtown Indianapolis. The large glass building is the Indianapolis Artsgarden. Included in the painting are all of my favorite subjects and techniques. I love cars, people, and buildings. I really enjoy perspective, both atmospheric and linear. Perspective gives depth. The atmospheric perspective makes things closer be done larger and with more detail, but smaller and less defined as they are further away. For example look at the cars on the left, but the buildings in the distance under the Artsgarden. The linear perspective is shown when the sidewalk is wide at the front and narrower as it goes to the rear. Everything goes to one vanishing point in the distance.
Look at the different colors in the white car on the left or in the artsgarden. I looked for shapes and values and painted them. They eventually came together like a jigsaw puzzle, creating the objects.
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This is a painting of a dear friend. His name is John Frazee. I became aquainted with him when he called on the phone and asked if he could take painting lessons from me. I became very good friends with him. There were three or four of us who painted together. We were all very good buddies. We went many places to paint together. This painting is of him in his basement. He had some metalworking tools he wanted to show me. My wife and I have had dinner with him and his wife, Lucille, many times.
I’m saddened, though, because he is in the hospital being kept alive on a respirator. He went in for a five bypass surgery. Complications happened shortly after. I hope he’ll be okay. He has really meant a lot to me in my life.
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I love old classic cars. This one has those big fenders over the wheels. I remember when I was a little kid my dad had a car with fenders like this. I used to climb under the fender and lay on top of the tire just for fun. One day I was doing that when I heard the car door shut and the ignition started. I hopped off fast. My mother never knew how close she came to squishing me on the driveway.
This painting is done with linear perspective, the front is wider than the back would be. I have painted shapes of colors on the car, from deep red, to pink, to orange. Also I have painted an old-time gas station to give atmosphere.
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These are some of the students from one of the classes I teach. They are very accomplished. I think I could put them up against most any painters around. They weren’t always that way. They lacked confidence when they started, but I have tried to teach them the techniques I have found that help me in my own work. I want them to paint what they see, not what they think they see. They look for shapes and values rather than trying to paint the whole object at a time. I’m very proud of these people and the others not pictured. I have seen many of them become very accomplished and award winning artists.
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I’ve always loved cars. As a kid I used to get the brochures from car dealers or cut out auto advertisements from magazines. I spent hours and hours trying to draw them. Now, decades later, I still love to draw and paint them. If you look at my cityscapes you’ll always find them in the scene.
My favorite painting technique is to look for shapes of color or value rather than trying to do the whole thing. I’ll see the window at the side which is white. Then I’ll see sections on the hood that are the same color. I’ll paint those in. Parts of the car will have a very deep red, then others will have almost an orange color. I paint the shapes the colors I see, and all of a sudden, the puzzle is put together. It is a believable automobile. I don’t blend the colors together, I just paint the individual shapes the colors they are, and put the next color right next to them. It works great. Try it!
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I was an art student at the University of Utah. My professor was Paul Davis, probably one of the top ten painters in the United States. In one of his classes he asked us to go home and do a quick still life of something on four different nights. The next day we would prop them up against the wall for a critique. Most of the class painted flowers or scenes of their kitchen windows. I just did tools. On the last day he asked me if my wife locked me in the garage or something. That’s the story of these tools. Kind of a guy thing, don’t you think?
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