The Secret Life of the Artist

It has been over a month since I posted so I thought I would include a picture of some of the things I've been doing lately, art related and not. The landscape is a 15" X 30" oil of hay bales in a field in Cody, Wyoming at sunrise. I spent a long time on it mostly trying not to be too tight. The second image has nothing to do with painting. I sometimes repair old pocket watches to make money. I buy old broken watches in hopes of getting them running and selling them. I hoped to make a career of painting, so while I have painted, taught painting and worked an an illustrator and animator there are always other things that painters do that are totally unrelated to art. Two of my closest friends from art school have put in 15 to 30 years at jobs that have nothing to do with art. One works at a supermarket (something he has done since he was a teenager) in the frozen food and dairy section. He has tremendous talent and great idealism and is represented by a third rate gallery (the same one that I have some of my work in!!!). So he will probably put in another year or so and then perhaps be able to retire to what he loves doing, full time painting. I would venture to say that most of the people he works with know nothing about his talent as a painter. Another friend whose work I have always admired (he was a year ahead of me in art school and was an inspiration for me when I began) traveled to Europe, painted in France in the countryside and has done large beautiful landscapes -- and has been a delivery service truck driver for about 15 years. I went painting with him last summer and now that he's not regularly painting, he just feels resigned that his skills have eroded and is a truck driver more than a painter. I know there are many among you that have the same experience, yourself or friends. How many people work at their craft of art and never tell anyone they work with about it? My buddy was talking with a long time painter who said "Just because you do this on a part time basis, it doesn't make you any less an artist". It's an interesting subject.

Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina

These are two of the oil sketches I did while I was in a small state park in NC. Both are 6 X 8" and because of the winds there they are loaded with sand. Wherever you set up to paint the wind is blowing the sand about. This is why the Wright brothers chose this area for flying, so I am told.

Outer Banks, North Carolina

Last week I drove over a thousand miles from here, the Midwest, to the east coast -- the Outer Banks of North Carolina to the town of Duck, just north of Kitty Hawk. The temperature was about 15 to 20 degrees warmer, the price of gas about 50 to 60 cents cheaper and the Southern accent just delightful. In between was some good road food and some bad road food -- and lots of road kill, but that's another story. My wife had taken a walk along the beach and told me to watch out for the waves, so by the time I set up away from the range of the waves inshore, I thought I was safe. I had a block-in going when all of a sudden I was knee deep in the ocean and my paint box was quickly floating away. I ran -- that is, RAN!!! after my paint box and bag with extra canvases. I managed to catch up with them to save them (filled with water by now), but lost about $40 to $50 dollars worth of paint. I lost a tube of Cadmium Red, White, Cobalt Blue, Alizarin, Ultramarine and Cadmium Yellow. I watched as they sank into the sand and after that I have no idea where they went as wave after wave hit the shore. I just hope The Nature Conservancy wasn't watching. I worked on the sketch I had going for a while, but since I was rather bummed out, I packed up and left. I didn't touch the oils until the next afternoon. I've posted a picture of the spot I was working, the evil sea and a pencil drawing I did of one of the shore birds while sitting on the beach in the post-trauma afternoon. There's a lesson to be learned there somewhere. The sea is a powerful thing -- it drove me inside -- I am re-reading Moby Dick.

St. Giles, Oxford, England

It was a warm, sunny day down the street from the famous Eagle and Child pub on St. Giles. (Wow, what a great start for a story.) Nonetheless, it was a warm sunny day when we came a cross this beautiful scene in Oxford ---- sunlight, shadows, a tree in wonderful autumn color. This is an 11 X 14 oil on linen. This one was finished rather quickly and the food at the Eagle and Child was quite good as I recall.

Another show, another hawk

Sorry to have another picture of myself, but there it is. I drove through a rainstorm which had several streets closed on the way to McCord Gallery in Palos Park, IL to drop off my pastel for a show called "Landscape Real And Imagined." Mine is "real" although I have done abstract imagined landscapes before. My friend Ric had a painting in the show also -- "Imagined" -- (his is a chair made of thorns in a landscape). My pastel was done earlier this year of the last snowfall of the year back in March when I rushed out of the house before it could melt. We have had a hawk, or two, in my neighborhood for the last several years. A friend identified this as a Cooper's Hawk. It's perched on my fence near a window. I had to slip my camera lens through the blinds and, lest I disturb the hawk, take the picture before he went on his merry hunting way. He's nailed a few morning doves in my backyard. I now have paintings in two shows --- a first for me and I will be looking for other places to show in the future. I am working furiously up there in the studio on more than one painting. One on canvas, the other on linen: both landscapes. Ever since I returned from the workshop in Wyoming I have really had the desire to paint.

Farms & Barns show

Last week the Farms & Barns show opened at The Next Picture Show gallery in Dixon, Illinois along the Rock river. Dixon is about 100 miles to the west of Chicago and takes about two hours to get there which would explain the bewildered expression on my face. Not to be confused with the Barns & Farms show in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, which I've done the last two years, the Farms & Barns show is a nice one too. My two paintings are the pastel on top and an oil below. I received a 3rd place award for that 12 X 24 oil of a farm after harvest in southern Wisconsin. In the meantime, I have been very busy painting, although I must confess --- I haven't been outside. Here I intend to be a plein air painter and there I am, upstairs in the studio painting inside. It's an embarrasing confession to make.

Studies from Cody, Wyoming

These are two more small studies (8 X10).