Paintings With Soul

    From left to right: Koi I, II, III, IV, each 6" square, together measuring 6" x 24", acrylic on museum quality panel, depicting koi fish in a natural pond setting, all four panels together available for $699. Inquiries may come  to me .     I came home from last night's art guild meeting inspired and wanting to paint. Since I had to stay up and wait for a kid to return home, I poured a glass of wine and reached for my brushes. You can see what I worked on long past said kid's return  here  - including the work today.   Around lunch I got to a clear stopping point and decided to work on something entirely different - an idea I have had for quite some time.   So this afternoon was spent fishing.   The four panels are meant to stay together - and yet each of them also works well alone, as you can see in the individual photos below.   Once the originals sell, I'll offer reproductions on these fo...

"Koi I," from the Cherished series of paintings, 16" x 20", acrylic on museum quality panel, depicting some pretty muscular goldfish. This painting is headed to ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan in September, and will be available for purchase there. Please  email me  if you are interested in it and I will be happy to make the necessary arrangements.   So, the whole time I'm painting Koi (and it was a conscious decision to break away from my regular subject matter), I'm thinking we choose the sort of water we swim in.    We cannot choose what we swim with (or against), but we can control where inside that school of fish (or sharks!) we choose to be and whether to tread water or move forward or turn around and return to where we started.   So it was these sort of circuitious thoughts that filled my head while I worked away.   And I'd love to paint more koi and goldfish!  Let me know  if you have a pond o...

  Koi, 18"x24" original painting, acrylic on panel, $1000 plus s&h to the first asking nicely.  Link to purchase is below.   Please reach out   with any questions. Did you know that the animals in my paintings come from my dreams? and that I dream of foxes several times a week? This time around I was walking my dogs at The Biltmore Estate. We were mostly alone - nobody else physically present, but I could feel a palpable energy swirling about. If I squinted really hard, I could see faint silhouettes of people in the sky, murmering to each other. Their voices harmonized with birdsong and the fountain. And there was a little fox walking with us - she was dancing about with the three dogs, teaching them how to disapparate with a little head movement and tail flick. Oddly enough I wasn't worried about them running off or disappearing altogether. There was something so pleasant about being there in the gardens, wrapped up in sky. It was a rare and welcome mo...

“The Wishing Pond,” 6” x 8”, casein (milk based paint) on panel, Dog a Day painting #999. This painting will be available for purchase via auction (along with some other sketches and watercolor paintings from my visit) next week. In the meanwhile, inquiries may always come to me . Best Friends Animal Sanctuary is a blessed place. My eyes have been dazzled all week with the natural beauty of the canyon, the commitment of the animals' caretakers, and the sanctity of certain spots within the grounds. The Wishing Garden is one of those spots. Hummingbirds buzz visitors, the pond gently bubbles, and mammoth koi calmly circle in their oasis of blue green. Just another slice of heaven that I've been enjoying. Shortly we'll begin unpacking the crates containing my art and hanging the “Happily Ever Afters” exhibition. If you are in the area, please stop by The Village for tonite's opening, which runs 5:30-7pm. It promises to be a wonderful evening. It'll also include ...

"One Fish, Two Fish," 12" square, painting of a mixed breed dog and koi, done in acrylics on a museum quality panel, $599 to the first one  asking nicely . SOLD . This is the piece I worked on at Wednesday evening's live paint event at  Merge Gallery . I started and finished within the span of a few hours, all while mingling with the attendees and other artists. I know I may get some flack here. "It ONLY took you a few hours?!" While the execution perhaps seems minimal as far as investment of time, the work and learning leading up that equals 40+ years of study and persistence. No one is born simply knowing how to paint - they spend a lifetime refining an interest or an inclination. It's incredibly hard work, just like trigonometry. Or world economics. Or running a marathon. I break a sweat, too, in the studio - over stuff like color harmony and balanced compositions and turning light into something tangible. ...

  I cannot believe it's nearly here!   ArtPrize  opens in a matter of weeks, and the final preparations have begun.  Elizabeth St Hilaire Nelson  and I are delivering our work to the  MVP Metro Club  in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan on September 19th.   My "Cherish" series will compliment her "Noah's Ark" pieces, along with a pairing of koi and bunnies that we created in our own style specifically for ArtPrize. (Pictured above is my "Flopsy Bunny," a 9" x 12" portrait on panel, which will be joined in Grand Rapids by Elizabeth's  "Flopsy." )   There will be over 1500 artists showing their work within a 3 square mile area of Grand Rapids. In addition to juried prizes, the viewing public will choose award winners via texted votes, a la American Idol style. It promises to be exciting and inspiring for both artists and visitors.   For more information, visit  the ArtPrize website . And s...

"Minx," 24" x 30", acrylics on panel, $899 plus s&h. From the Beribboned Series, Minx features a lovely thoroughbred reminiscent of The Black Stallion's daughter Black Minx. Inquiries may come   to me .   Share Tweet Forward If you are shopping for an artist's gift this season, here are a few can't-go-wrong suggestions:   A museum membership allows the recipient to enjoy a year's worth of programming with family and friends, while also supporting a key element of their cultural community. Blank books come in all sorts of bindings and sizes. Choose one with a heavier paper weight for artists that work in paint. "Color, A Natural History of the Palette" by Victoria Findley is a marvelous recounting of the discovery of pigments by various cultures and the resulting meaning or use of color inside their history. The   Koi watercolor travel pan   is a fantastic gift for a painter on the...

"January," a Florus Animalum painting , 24" x 20", acrylics on panel, featuring a polar bear crowned with pink peonies and dahlias. This piece is available for purchase to the  first asking nicely , $799 (includes s&h inside the US). Thank you so much! Freezing rain, ice, sleet, puddles of standing water, all overtop an already saturated and frozen yard, gave us an indoor swimming pool in the basement today. After cleaning that mess up and discovering the (previously waterproofed) walls themselves were now oozing water despite the exterior of the house being dry, I needed to lose myself in some pretty color and a fantasy world. The forecast is for rain 4 of the next 8 days. Maybe I should just give in and turn the basement into a koi pond. My Better Half has a plan, though, that doesn't involve fish or fins of any sort. And I see a couple tweaks I want to make to January in the morning. Thanks, as always, for supporting my art, Warm...