Here are some of the oil paintings I have done and managed to:
a) get photographs of, and
b) have the photos scanned.
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This is the painting that started it all. This was my first one. I wanted something that captured many of the elements of the American Southwest, but not looking like I plagiarized Georgia O'Keefe. The original is 4 feet by 2 feet.
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This is how I imagine a winter's night in Alaska might be with the Northern lights shining.
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Everett Mayo is a renowned folk artist in Richmond. He was a successful boxer before a carpentry accident. He paints animals on driftwood, which is to say that he looks for driftwood with "animal characteristics or shapes" and using his paints highlights those characteristics. This scene is the James River at the Bosher Dam just above the Willey Bridge.
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Sandra Taylor and I worked together at Stuart Circle Hospital. Her family finally moved into their new home and needed a housewarming gift. She said that she wanted something tropical and this is what she got.
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This is the view from my parent's future home in Hertford, NC. It is on the Albemarle Sound and next to a wildlife-filled swamp. The old house didn't survive Fran (the Hurricane, not the Nanny) and so a new one was built.
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This painting was an accident. I was trying to paint a mountainscape and it wasn't working. So I started scraping off the paint and wiping the remainder with paint thinner. I liked the way the colors ran for the foreground and then worked on the sky.
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This is from a photograph I took in late October 1993. The light reflecting off of El Capitan in Yosemite that afternoon was remarkable. This painting became a house warming gift for my bother and his wife in their new house in Charlotte NC. (They now live in Raleigh)
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This painting was inspired by a photograph in a book I have. The surprising thing is that I must have done a good job, because quite a few people have actually been to this place and have asked me when I was there. I've never been here.
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This painting was inspiried by all the colors of all the sunsets I have seen so far in my life. It was also an exercise of using complementary colors for emphasis.
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The title says it all for the crew of the fishing boat as they head back to dock.
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Jim and I used to live in the apartments behind the grey
building on the left and much too close to the Bullets fast
food joint. Late one summer, Hurricane Emily went up the
east coast of the US, and the outer fringes of the storm
system passed over Richmond. This is what the sky looked
like that day. |
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This painting uses just 3 colors: Prussian Blue, Payne's Grey and Titanium White. For all the icy blueness, it still seems somewhat inviting.
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Why do I paint? I'm gay - I have to be artistic!
No, no, no, that's not right. Sorry for the blatant stereotyping - yet I believe that I am a very creative individual (although I have almost no fashion sense, but please don't take away my membership card!)
The real story is somewhat different. It all started with the new living room furniture (sofa and love seat) Jim & I bought a few years ago. Once we had it in the apartment, we realized we needed a nice, large piece of artwork for over the sofa. Shopping for just the right thing became quite a task as we didn't have a lot of money, the couch has a southwestern motif in the fabric, and all the paintings we saw that we liked were way too expensive. The ones that were in our price range looked as if drunken monkeys had painted (OK, we were somewhat picky, but it's required 'cause we're gay - it's in the handbook). So after a few too many shopping trips coming home empty handed and too many weekends watching PBS and Bob Ross whip out paintings in 1/2 hour, I thought that I could paint at least as well as a drunken monkey and had an idea for an abstract desert scene. I did a quick mock up on my old Mac LC (that was then, now I have a PowerMac 6360), bought some oil paints, some practice canvases and the big canvas. I practiced a couple of times and then painted the real thing.
The result: Jim liked it, I liked painting and I had spent about $250 on painting supplies, so I just kept on painting. I've probably painted close to 75 landscapes and abstracts so far; most have been used as gifts or bought by co-workers. I can paint mountains, clouds and waves really well and am working on improving my trees - can't paint people or animals as well as I would like yet. I need lots more practice (which I'm not getting as painting at the apartment was a bit of a hassle). I looked forward to the day we would buy a house and I could paint in my backyard. Well, we bought a house with a BIG backyard, but now I'm too busy doing yard work to paint. Oh well, that's life.
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