Neuro One, 5x7 pen on paper

This is a complete departure from my usual paintings. It's called Neurographic Art and it is a very meditative art form. When I'm too busy or too tired to paint, it helps divert me from my nagging, empty easel.

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Apollo, 11x14 Dog Portrait Oil Painting on Canvas

 

There's nothing that gets me moving like that deadline called "Christmas." This one is a gift.

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Marie Antoinette's Village, Watercolor

You know how bored you can get when you are so wealthy that there's nothing to strive for? Me either. Marie Antoinette thought it would be cute to build an entire village where she could play at being a milkmaid. Go figure. It has been nicely preserved at Versailles, and the contrast between the palace there and this village is rather like the contrast between Mar-a-Lago and the average American home. Conspicuous consumption is one reason she lost her head.

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At the Movies, 30x40 oil on canvas

 

Many years ago (and I do mean many) when I was a newborn, we lived in an apartment above a movie theater and my dad managed the theater. This depicts my mother holding me, surrounded by the stars of that day, above, left to right, clockwise: Hedy Lamar, Fred and Ginger, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, Clark Gable, Katherine Hepburn, James Stewart and Donna Reed, Vivian Leigh and Olivia deHavilland, and Orson Welles.

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Golden Sunrise, 24 x 24 Oil on Linen Seascape

 

I went straight from painting a sunny beach with a baby sitting on it to this. The beauty of the ocean is a moveable feast, endlessly changing.

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Checkin' the Waves, Oil on Canvas 11x14

This is our adorable grandson at the beach. This reminded me of surfers in our community standing on a crossover to the beach and checking the waves, deciding whether to go to school (or work, as the case may be). 

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Cell Phone Cutie, 8x10 Oil on Canvas, Child with Phone

 

This little cutie was so engrossed in his phone that he was ignoring the sweet, fat treat beside him. The scene was further enhanced by the beam of sunlight on his head. 

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The Farrier, 16x20 Watercolor Equine Art

I am primarily an oil painter, but I enjoyed doing this watercolor. I suppose it's unusual to have a horse's rear end be prominent in a painting, but I loved the farrier's pose.

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Blueberries 6x6 Oil Painting

I once tried growing  blueberries. This was my whole crop! Oh well.

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Quilling Fun I've Been Having Lately

I started quilling flowers and cards, then discovered the beauty of monograms. This one was for my daughter Suzanne, the accomplished gardener.

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Quillyfish

These little fish are for the Just Another Fish on the Wall exhibit at the Fifth Avenue Gallery in Melbourne on April 4th. The technique is called Quilling, hence my title, "Quillyfish." I look forward to seeing what the talented artists around here make for the exhibit. 

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Just for Fun Flippable Painting

This is my small dual-purpose seascape. Flip it and it becomes river rapids with a forest in the background. 

SOLD

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Suzanne, Graphite Drawing

 

My daughter Suzanne.

Daisy, 16x20 Oil Painting Dog Portrait

 

This painting is for dear friends who recently lost this sweet dog.

                            Carmen

Olive, 12x16 oil on canvas

 

I enjoyed this commission for a dog portrait. This regal photo of the late beloved dog Olive was such a nice pose. 

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Rosa Parks, 9x12 Graphite Drawing

On December 1,1955 in Montgomery, Alabama Rosa Parks refused a bus driver's order to vacate a row of four seats in the "colored" section in favor of a white female passenger who had complained to the driver the white section was full. She was arrested and subsequently became central to the year-long bus boycott in Montgomery. In her autobiography, My Story, she said:

"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

^Carmen

Frederick Douglass, 9x12 Graphite Drawing

Continuing my series of Civil Rights heroes, here is my rendering of Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery and became a leader of the antislavery movement. He was a great writer and an orator who was much in demand. In describing his childhood, he wrote this:

    "The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing...My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age....I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone."

What an amazing spirit he had to overcome beatings, dehumanization and loss of his mother to become one of the most respected intellectuals of his time. He credited finding faith in God when he was a teen with bringing him out of his despair.

Harriet Tubman, 9x12 Graphite Drawing

The amazing Harriet Tubman escaped slavery and returned to rescue 70 enslaved people, including her family, via the network of activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War she was the first woman to lead an armed military operation in the country, the raid on Combahee Ferry, in which over 700 slaves were freed.

To borrow from Shakespeare: "Though she was but little, she was fierce."

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Rainy Day in Boston, 11x14 Oil on Canvas

My sister took this photo and asked me to paint it. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. I try to be looser, but I can't help myself.

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Surfspray, 24x18 Original Oil Seascape

I really enjoy painting waves with a lot of action. I always loved reading seafaring tales when I was a kid. As an adult, I have only been on ships twice, and both were in storms with waves much bigger this. There is nothing romantic about seasickness. I am quite content seeing the beauty of the surf from the beach. 

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