A friend of mine mentioned yesterday that he was having a “Lord of the Rings” marathon all day, which sounded like a better-than-most way of spending a cold, snowy Sunday when venturing outdoors would be a sign of questionable sanity (I know in Columbus we got another four inches).  I’m one of those devotees who is actually glad the movies were ( Read more... )

Stage Five:
And now the magic happens. Behold! Patches of sunlight filtering through the partially seen leafy canopy are actually composed of three layers of paint, as the first layer was too golden, the corrective second coat made it to too blinding white and a third coat, of just the barest amount of black (smudged on with my fingertips) was ( Read more... )

Stage Four
The leafy canopy and assorted foliage has appeared.  This is done in the traditional impasto technique, which is just using thicker opaque layers of paint.  This blend of two styles - the use of multiple thin transparent layers coupled with single opaque thick layers of paint, is probably the most individualistic quality of my painting ( Read more... )

Stage Three:
At last, this is starting to head in the right direction. Judiciously adding some more black to indicate shading and texture is like sculpting, giving form to the blankness, some articulation to the yawning void.  And so the artist imparts a fleeting sense of purpose, giving a semblance of order to existence.   There are discrete ( Read more... )

Stage Two:
Hm.  Well.  This is looking fairly awful - like the first attempt at a water color by a third-grader.  Rather a humble beginning here, which is why I invariably prohibit the viewing public from seeing my paintings until they are 100% complete.

Keep in mind that everything at this point has only a single coat of paint.  The lighter ( Read more... )

Over the next week, I am going to treat you all to a peak behind the curtain, as I show an oil painting in varying (and hopefully increasing) stages of completion, so you can garner a better understanding of the artistic process (for me, anyway).  I have been meaning to do this for several years now, but I haven’t because quite frankly I haven’t ( Read more... )

When photography was first developed [pun intended!] by the French in the 1830’s or so, some people, such as the history painter Paul Delaroche, declared that Painting was now dead.  That dire prediction proved to be premature, of course.  But photography did begin to make obvious inroads into domains once totally governed by the artist - ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

( Read more... )