I painted Rupert for our son-in-law Vincent’s 30 somethingth birthday this month. Sadly, as it turns out, Rupert is slowly dying. He has been a wonderful cat, friendly and affectionate. He has lived longer than we expected, what with his taste for toxic chemicals and his talent for escaping outdoors. Even though he hasn’t eaten for days, the sweetheart still roused himself to stand up to greet me when I visited yesterday.
The painting is acrylic on 10″ x 10″ stretched canvas.
It seems I need to paint all of the family’s pets. It was Oreo’s turn for her portrait to be painted. She is Skittles’ litter mate and playmate. They have very different temperaments. Skittles will lay, purring on my chest for hours. He will come when I call and let me pick him up and snuggle him. He just settles in and enjoys it. Oreo comes if she smells chicken or hears her food bowl hit the counter. She surprises us when she jumps up on us and jumps down just as suddenly. She likes to sleep in Bethann’s clothing drawers under the bed.
Both of them like to race back and forth in the middle of the night.
Of course, I have painted Skittles and Oreo a few times before in CUDDLE!, SNUGGLE!, and SPOON!
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $70 plus postage.
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I saw an image of fierce-looking tiger eyes composed like this. I decided that I needed to portray my cat Skittles’ inner tiger. This is part of my Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2019 home decor project.
The painting is acrylic on 24″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $200 plus postage.
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This is another painting of my cat, Skittles, done in dots, then surrounded by brightly colored feathers, on a black background.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100
SOLD
These are Oreo and Skittles sitting on the window sill looking out for birds and rabbits, bees and butterflies. They may also notice some of the human activity on our corner. I call the piece Weltanschauung because it is my view of the world. We rent a 500 square foot house. The house we owned was foreclosed on and auctioned after I had several hospitalizations and my business failed, and Social Security (falsely so called) took three years to get me disability, and then did not pay my retroactive back pay for another two years, until after I finally happened upon a sympathetic Social Security employee who risked her job to fix the problem for me. While that was happening, I found out that the illness I had before had damaged my aortic valve. So I had it replaced with a pig valve last June. I had three rounds of infection in my chest incision after that. The week we moved into this tiny house, last September, I was weak with pain and had to spend time chasing down a rare antibiotic that is now the ninth on the list of those I am allergic to.
Of course, Weltanschauung means far more than just one’s view of the world out of a window. Surely you can see how the experience of the last several years has shaped and reformed my worldview. While this may look like an idyllic picture of country life, it is actually facing a very busy street in the middle of town.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $150 plus postage
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Comrades Skittles and Oreo are ordering us to take our positive affection opposition to fascism up another notch with this one. First, there was “CUDDLE!” Then it was “SNUGGLE!” Now it’s: “SPOON!”
Couldn’t you just see it; a couple hundred thousand couples spooning on the mall in DC, gently asking for no more imperialist wars, an end to subsidies to petroleum, full conversion to solar power, conversion to cradle-to-cradle production cycles eliminating landfills, … ? Cats can dream, can’t they?
Painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $200 plus postage
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Phase Two of the Revolution: SNUGGLE!
Cuddling was phase one. I realize we need to work on that. Some may be asking what the difference is between cuddling and snuggling. C’mon, comrades! Are we serious about making progress and spreading love and joy? Well, then, the difference should be obvious. Snuggling involves more motion. It can be done in larger groups. Think mosh pits, only embracing. Now put that on the road to Mar-a-Lago to block one of the so-called president’s golf vacations he said he was never going to take. The international press would have fun with that, so would all of us snugglers.
“Make New Friends, Not New Refugees!”
This just came out from my fellow Minneapolitan. It expresses the sentiment of the movement:
The original is for sale now, but within a week, hopefully, I will have posters, postcards and lawn signs.
Painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $200 plus postage
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I have been searching for ways to use my art to positively respond to the current horror that we face in American governmental breakdown. Each day, there is a new attack; a new round of newspeak. One day it is a congresswoman proudly proclaiming that her vote giving permission to internet service providers to sell all of our browsing histories to whomever wants to buy them “protects your privacy.” The next day, Sean Spicer is giving a grimacing Park Service employee a huge, game-show, donation check for $78,000 (supposedly Trump’s 3 months’ net salary), two days after Trump’s budget cut the Park Service budget by over $1.5 billion. Fact checkers have determined that 69.1% of Trump’s statements are false. One White House reporter said in frustration, “It is hard to know what to think when you can’t tell what Trump means when he uses words.”
Yesterday, I started to paint this portrait of my cat, with a Che Guevara beret. Skittles helps keep me sane. He climbs up onto my left side and cuddles. If things get too intense, he lies on my keyboard. We have matching heart murmurs. He will get in my face and command me to “CUDDLE!” It struck me that this is what America and much of the world needs right now. I can see it now, massive cuddle-ins in front of defense contractors and fracking stations; cuddlers blocking access to United Airlines offices; cuddlers circling the Pentagon; cuddlers on the mall in DC asking for an end to military expansion and for universal healthcare.
“Make Love, not Human Services Cuts!”
HUG O’ WAR
I will not play at tug o’ war.
I’d rather play at hug o’ war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles.
And everyone wins.
– Shel Silverstein
Painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $300 plus postage
SOLD
Pepi was a Golden Cocker Spaniel. Our family purchased him at a service station along Route 8 on our way home from family camp at Camp Lawton on Deer Lake in Wisconsin, when I was six. He was the runt of the litter, so they let him go for $10. I was the youngest of the four children. I spent the most time with him. He pretty much became my dog. Like me, he had a wide circle of friends, and roamed freely in a wide area of the neighborhood. We had Jewish next door neighbors who dearly loved him, and welcomed him into their house regularly. He would defend their front step as vigorously as ours from the paperboy or the mailman. The mailman always brought a Milkbone for Pepi. Pepi would bark, at first, for show. He would receive his treat and petting, then he would accompany our mailman along the rest of his route. This helped him a great deal, as Pepi would keep any dogs busy while he delivered the mail. If any pets were loose, Pepi would make sure they would not come near to, or harm, the mailman.
Pepi would always get excited when my dad got home from work. He knew when the normal time was and he would sit on the manhole cover in the middle of the street, looking East in anticipation of his car. Our neighbor’s Hebrew school bus would sometimes come to drop Elaine off after her lessons. Pepi would not budge from his spot on the manhole cover. The driver would have to veer way to the right to go around him. Pepi loved kosher food. Whenever there was a Jewish family picnic in the neighborhood, even if he had to cross the highway, somehow he would sniff it out and find it. He would beg for food and scarf up anything that was dropped. Then he would come home, eat grass and throw up. We found out just how far he had ranged when our neighbors, the Shermans, had a big gathering on the occasion of a visit of family members from Israel. Pepi, of course, attended, as well. So many of the guests said to each other, “So you know this dog, too?!”
The painting is based on a 4″ black and white snapshot I took of Pepi eating from his dishes in the back yard of our house on Lowry Terrace in Golden Valley, Minnesota. In the background is the fort that my dad built from plans from Popular Mechanics. It had a locked shed in the back for the lawn mower and yard tools. The front had a little play house with a ladder through a hatch to the top deck with the turrets. It was great for snowball fights, etc. That fort was a famous landmark for children for miles around. More kids played in our fort than I ever knew. Behind the fort was a swamp that had milkweed, so we had loads of Monarch butterflies and other wildlife. Behind that was a sledding hill with four rows of American Elms which separated three great sled runs, that terminated on the swamp, which, of course, froze in the winter. The lower part of our yard, next to the fort, was flooded for a skating rink, for several years when I was growing up. In the summer, our yard was the middle of three mostly flat yards, with only one tree, that ran together without fences, where we could play football, baseball, soccer, dodgeball, etc. It was a great place, and a great time to grow up.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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Fezzik is a little cat ironically named after the character played by André the Giant in The Princess Bride. I painted it for a present for our grandson Jacob’s 13th birthday. The cat was a stray that adopted his family and now lives indoors.
It is acrylic on 10″ x 10″ stretched canvas.
This painting represents my first headlong plunge into abstract art, with a whimsical, primitive twist. I decided to name it “Catnip”. Whether you want to think of the cat’s mind being altered or the viewer’s is up to you.
The painting is acrylic on 24″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $40 plus postage
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I grew up in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, Minnesota. It actually has more like 12,512 lakes and 90,000 miles of shoreline. That’s more shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined! So I did some fishing as a child. We caught Northerns, Walleyes, Bass and Perch, but the most fun and the best eating were the simple Sunfish! If you found a good spot, you could just pull them in one after another! They weren’t that big, but they always put up a good fight. We knew a bay on Lake Lizzy near Detroit Lakes, MN, where we regularly caught 3/4 lb. to 1-1/2 lb. Pumpkinseed Sunnies. We would catch them by the cooler-full. Then we would scale them and fillet them. Then we would batter and fry them up; invite the whole clan and a few strays over. We’d fry up ‘chips’ (potato wedges); make tossed and 3 bean salads; and have plenty of beer and other libation on hand. We would have a Minnesota fish fry, where the fish is finger-lickin’ good! One time I was cleaning a cooler full of Sunnies on our back patio and our mailman came around back for a signature for something. He saw how I was filleting the fish. He got down on his knees and showed me a better method that would get more meat out of the fish.
My dad always intentionally mispronounced this variety of Sunfish and called them “Punkinseeds” for fun.
Painting is acrylic on 12″x12″ canvas.
Price: $100
SOLD!
This painting commemorates the day last June, shortly after my open heart surgery to replace my damaged aortic valve with a pig valve. I had just exited our house and was passing the front “garden”, a jumble of native plants and weeds. I was moving slowly. A male goldfinch landed on one of the many Echinacea that were in bloom. He was within arm’s length of me. He tilted his head and looked at me; then he began to sing. He went through all of his repertoire, then it seemed as if he turned to me again for a response. I said, “Thank you, Mr. Goldfinch!” He nodded and flew off, It was a magical moment, like something from one of those classic Disney movies.
The painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ stretched canvas.
Price: $40 plus postage
SOLD.
These globular blossoms are about 1″ in diameter with tiny tendrils poking out on all sides. The bushes are native to Pennsylvania. They were here before white men arrived. This is a painting of a blossom on a buttonwood bush in front of our house. That is why the red siding color is in the background. This is acrylic on a 16″ diameter canvas. The edge is painted bright yellow to facilitate frame-less hanging.
Price: $200 plus postage
Sorry. SOLD.
This painting was inspired by our visit to Edge of the Woods Native Plant Nursery. They have a beautiful butterfly garden that contains all of these plants plus several more in a dense, four foot tall jumble. We have all of the plants portrayed, in our yard in front of the little house we rent. They are goldenrod, milkweed, boneset, butterfly weed, native bee balm, oxeye daisies and red lobelia.
Several types of bees were all over the blooms, this summer, along with about a dozen types of butterflies.
It is also available on a deck of cards and soon on other things from our Zazzle store. Click here to learn more:
Butterfly Garden Playing Cards
by ShoutForJoyNet
Painting is acrylic on 30″ x 40″ stretched canvas.
Price: $300 plus postage.
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This is not a natural color for a coneflower unless one is looking at a yellow coneflower through black light sunglasses, naturally.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas. The edges are painted black.
Price: $50 plus postage
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Echinacea is commonly known as coneflower. It is native to where we live in southeastern PA. By native, I mean it was here before European settlers arrived. Yes, it is the same Echinacea that is in your cold remedy to help dry up sniffles. They grow and spread quite nicely in poor soil, as long as there is good sun and drainage. They are my kind of flower, as they thrive on neglect and attract all sorts of beautiful birds, butterflies, moths and bees.
Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $60 plus postage.
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I painted this bumblebee on a native Virginia Rose based on a photo from our garden from last summer.
Bumblebees are now endangered in US (regardless of what the so-called president Trump says) due to the use of Monsanto’s RoundUp, mono-culture farming, and the supplanting of native plants with exotics.
We replaced 30% of our lawn with native plants and always see lots of bumbles and other bees, along with butterflies, moths and birds of all types. Native plants are those that were in the area before Europeans arrived about 400 years ago.
The painting is 6″ x 6″ acrylic on stretched canvas, so is about life-size.
Price: $40 plus postage
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A word of explanation so you are not put off unnecessarily. I am sure you have heard of atheistic Jews. Well, I am an atheist follower of Jesus. So any talk of Jesus is not to proselytize. It just helps tell the story.
Jesus said, “And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?”
The point is that there is always enough to go around for everyone if we’d only learn to share. The object lesson is taken from daylilies which are native to Asia, including Palestine. Daylilies are glorious. I have about 90 varieties in our tiny yard. This is a painting of a stem of daylily buds that are yet to open. The largest will open the next day. So “consider the lilies” and get out in a garden. Dig in the dirt. Spend time in a park. Connect with the cycles of nature. It will lower your blood pressure and calm your psyche’.
I painted this on April 30, 2016. I was facing open heart surgery in June. I was thinking that just seeing the first bud of Spring one more time will be pleasing. I don’t hurry in grocery lines. I talk to the check out people and the other people in line. Life is for living every part of it, even when you aren’t in full bloom.
I have been saying “Life is too short to be in a hurry” to cashiers and bank tellers who have apologized to me for having long transactions or difficult customers ahead of me for some time now. Before I painted this, I googled the saying. I found it attributed to Oscar Wilde and an obscure poet. I had never read it by either of them, though. I think it just makes sense and treat it as an aphorism of those who have lived long enough to slow down; like all those white heads driving 45 on the freeway!
Now, in the COVID-19 quarantine, it has even more poignancy, as people are antsy to get out and about; to get back to work, etc. But opening too early may kill a lot of people, as the experience in Hong Kong suggests. This brings new meaning to the phrase: “Life is too short to be in a hurry!”
The painting is acrylic on 12″x12″ canvas, painted on the sides as well, so no expensive framing is required.
Price: $75 plus postage
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I painted this daylily using just three colors of paint: Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red, and Phtalo Green.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $20 plus postage. SOLD
This daylily was painted entirely using a pencil instead of brushes to apply the paint. The large dots were done using the fresh eraser end repeatedly dipped and dotted. The medium-sized dots were accomplished by sharpening the writing end halfway, so the lead was not quite exposed. The small, bright yellow dots, for the stamen, were made by sharpening the pencil to a point, then rubbing it down to a blunt point. For the effect, it helped that the yellow paint was thicker, as well. I even titled, dated and signed it in dots, but that is in fine tipped artist marker.
Painting is 20″ x 16″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $150 plus postage
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This is a stylized painting of a Stoplight Daylily. It is obvious how this variety earned this name. It is red, yellow and green just like the traffic lights.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $65 plus postage
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This is a stylized painting of a Purple Suspenders Daylily from our yard last Summer. There is a huge ladybug on a leaf in the upper right. This variety blooms late in the season with 7″ to 8″ blooms.
The painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ stretched canvas.
Price: $30 plus postage
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This daylily stands guard at the front of our yard and again at the edge of our patio with its vibrant, hot pink petals and luminous, deep yellow throat. On a sunny day, they almost seem electric. Roland Teich of Teich & McColgan Daylilies & Hostas bred this variety, so it is Hilltown / Peace Valley born, Roland & Robin’s place is just a half block off of Perkasie’s Callowhill, too.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage.
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I decided to just have some fun with the paint last Wednesday and paint a lighter subject, so I painted two daylilies. I used a limited number of colors. “Yin” is based on a Peace Valley Sentinel Daylily, with a Kelly Green and Green Apple split background. On the “Yang” the colors are reversed. I think they make a fun, colorful set. They are each 12″x12″ and are just fine informal, unframed for a sun room or at a beach house, any place you want to spread a little cheer!
Starving artist price: $50 for the pair, plus shipping.
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This is impressionistically based on a photo of Miss Jessie daylilies from next to our driveway.
The painting is acrylic on a 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $150
SOLD
Daylily blossoms only last for one day, then wilt and die, hence the name. This blossom bloomed over three years ago along the driveway, two residences ago. I photographed it, then processed it in Photoshop to reduce the number of shades of color used in the photo to about 40. I further reduced this number down to 22 shades of paint. Of them, only the yellow, white and two of the shades of green were ready out of a can or tube. The remaining 18 I custom blended. I painted it in the style of the paint by number paintings we did when we were kids, only there were no numbers and there were no pre-printed lines, and it is on a 36″ x 24″ stretched canvas instead of a 14″ X 11″ cardboard. At this size, it makes quite an impact, as it pays homage to a fading pastime.
The painting is acrylic on 36″ x 24″ stretched canvas.
Price: $250 plus postage.
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This is my first photo of a daylily from 2014. The bloom was looking straight at me, dead center in the photo. I superimposed an iris, that is a human iris, onto the bloom. The bloom was the exact shade of yellow my mom used in our living room when she redecorated it. It was the first time she was ever able to redo a whole room at once. The iris is the shade of green she used. I made the background the unique shade of aqua she used. That color became very popular in Golden Valley, MN. The florists my mom used would dye flowers that color for our parties. People would see them at our house or at the florists’ shop while awaiting delivery and request it for themselves. It became known as “B.J. Blue”. My mom’s name was B.J., short for Betty Jane.
Then I asked John Haggerty to help me by making the shape of a camera bezel for the frame on his Shop-Bot. I painted it black and inserted the museum quality print on canvas in the back.
~14-3/4″ diameter x 3-5/8″deep
Price: $350 plus shipping.
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At our house on Front Street in Souderton, I planted a Stoplight Daylily at the end of the driveway by the sidewalk. It is aptly named because of its brilliant red and yellow blossoms and bright green leaves. I am known for not noticing stoplights. At one point, when I was in my 30s, I started to count the red lights I noticed just after I blew through them. I stopped counting at 70, after a few weeks. When I drove my Scion xB for The King’s Jubilee, and we were giving rides home to people, it was customary for my regular passengers to quickly claim the back seat. This included 6’5″ Tony. At any rate, stoplights at midnight are a bit easier to see. Everyone was relieved when I safely arrived home to the one at the end of my drive.
It is subtle, but the background is not true black. It has a hint of blue in it. Also, in person, the stamen appear more orange than they appear in the photo. It is a very dramatic piece.
The painting is acrylic on 24″ x 18″ stretched canvas.
Price: $120 plus postage.
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Another photograph in my Lily Gilding series, this one has been filtered with a yellow “neon glow” then dabbed with touches of orange at the centers of the blooms to signify scent. Bees are especially attracted to the bright colors of the blossoms and filter out the greens. It is said, in fact, that perhaps they only see yellow. They are mostly guided by scent. Hummingbirds are especially attracted to yellows and reds. So this photo is all about the birds and the bees.
I made the frame out of native PA poplar and ribbed it reminiscent of the traditional bee skeps, then coated it with nine coats of black lacquer. It is museum quality printed on canvas.
The canvas is 24″x24″. The overall dimensions of the frame are 29-3/8″x29-3/8″x2″
$400 plus shipping
SOLD
This is from a photo of daylilies by our driveway taken in 2007. The “bonnet” is the spent blossom from the previous day. I filtered it to wash most of it to black. The name for this piece is “Widow’s Bonnet”. This is why she is wearing black. It is also why she is surrounded by about a 4″ ring of hammered copper. This represents the “Widow’s Mite” in the Gospel story. Daylilies are the lilies of the field that Jesus was talking about, which we are “to consider, for they do not labor, neither so they spin, but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Yet they are gone in a day, to be replaced with another equally beautiful bloom the next! The mite was the smallest copper coin with a hole in the middle; it was worth so little. That was all the widow had, yet she gave it to the poor at the Temple collection box. Jesus pointed out that she had given more than all the rich who had gone before and after, because she had given all she had.
So this piece reminds us of these two lessons. There is more than enough to go around every day, if only we share it. Give everything if necessary to make that happen.
This is a photograph that has been altered and museum quality printed on canvas. The frame is hand-hammered copper flashing tacked over a black painted, plywood base. It is 18-3/4″ diameter.
Price: $300 plus shipping
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This is from my Lily Gilding series. Before I painted daylilies, I painted with them. This is a photograph of a Backdraft Daylily, from a couple of summers back, right next to our front step. I modified it using several filters and adjustments, then cropped it just right. I call it Phoenix as it shows the persistence of new life and hope, even in the midst of entropy and crumbling bricks.
The border and frame paint are taken directly from the colors in the photo. Each time you look at it, be emboldened to hope and to work for positive change that we may rise from the ashes of our brokenness to see in each and every man, woman and child, a sister or a brother, worthy of dignity, respect, and care.
This is museum quality printed on canvas. I custom-made the frame from native PA poplar. The canvas is 24″x24″. The overall dimensions with the frame are 27″x27″x2-3/4″. The price is $450 plus shipping. (I have been told the frame is worth that alone.)
Sold.
The person who purchased it calls me every couple of months to thank me again for the beauty and brightness it has added to her home.
I can make another. I have committed to making no more than 10 total. Each are signed and numbered.
I wanted to paint poppies and figured that Georgia O’Keeffe had already done that better than I could ever do, so I tweaked it. This whimsical painting is based on a photograph of wild poppies with the color profile shifted to be similar to black light, or as if they were viewed through black light sunglasses.
Painting is acrylic and Sharpie on 20″ x 16″ stretched canvas.
Price: $200 plus postage
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This is simply a hot pink, pompom mum blossom on a light green background.
Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $20 plus postage.
SOLD.
This is a stylized painting of a Blue Waterlily (nymphaea caerulea). It is also known as a Blue Lotus. It was sacred in ancient Egypt, associated with the sun god Ra. In 2009, it was made illegal in Latvia, Poland, and Russia, for its drug uses. It is floating on the water, of course, which is reflecting the blue sky.
I painted this waterlily using just three colors of paint: Titanium White, Cerulean Blue, and Cadmium Yellow.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $20 plus postage.
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This is a simple, stylized painting of a zinnia, just for fun!
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas. The paint continues over the edges, so no expensive framing is required.
Price: $50 plus postage
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This painting of a single tulip set on the background of a fiery diamond was inspired by the blizzard we experienced in Perkasie, PA on the first full day of Spring where we had over a foot of snow fall. Well, to say it fell is to misstate the situation. Much of the time it was flying sideways. The next day it was over 40º F. As the snow melted, the crocuses were still blooming, the tulip leaves and hyacinth buds had appeared. Sports fans are eagerly anticipating baseball opening day. We have three rapidly melting snow boulders in our front yard, the handiwork of our younger granddaughter, Brigitta.
Other than the stem, the painting was all accomplished using white, red and yellow paint, blending to make all the shades of pink, pale yellow, orange, and hot pink.
Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $60 plus postage.
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When I set out to paint a purple and yellow waterlily, I thought I was inventing something new, since I had only ever seen white and yellow waterlilies in the wild in my time growing up in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It turns out, they grow in all sorts of colors: violet, blue, red, purple, pink, fuchsia, orange, yellow and white. So, in this case, art imitates life.
Painting is acrylic on 20″ x 16″ stretched canvas.
Price: $200 plus postage
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This painting of a single dahlia blossom was the first time I have been commissioned to do a work in advance. In fact, I was paid, in full, in advance, and given complete artistic freedom. The client, who is our neighbor, only specified the size of the canvas. He sent me photos he had taken of his wife’s prizewinning dahlias. I could choose to do a grouping, a stand, a bouquet or a single. Neither he nor I knew the names of the varieties. The painting was a surprise for his wife’s birthday. I played around with the 10 or so photographs he had given me, until I settled on this: a single blossom on a 20″ x 20″ x 2″ canvas. I painted the entire area of the blossom with Cadmium Yellow as an undercoat. The paint for every petal has some of that yellow blended in it to convey the glow of that blossom. It took me over a week to paint. I painted the 2″ edges Cadmium Yellow. There is no need for a frame. I coated it with museum quality, clear spray acrylic to protect it. Dave was thrilled with it. He told me his wife Tammy is thrilled with it. I had named the painting, “Good Morning Sunshine!” Tammy saw it and recognized the blossom immediately as a “Sugartown Sunrise” Dahlia.
This painting really makes an impact at four feet wide and three free tall! It was such a beautiful weekend, I decided to accompany my wife and daughter to the Franconia Township Fall Fest, where they were selling their wares. Bethann makes clothing, purses and quilts. Hilary makes jewelry. I went along to help set up and take down and took this painting, along with my good easel and supplies, to work on it Saturday 11 to 6. Last week, when our daughter, April, saw it, she said it looked trippy. I said, “Yeah, sunflowers on acid.” She said, “More like the artist was on acid.” Full disclaimer here: neither one of us has ever done acid. (At least I know I never have. I mean, not that I remember.)
Sometimes, while I am painting, I learn more about my subjects. April mentioned the Fibonacci Sequence in the pattern of the florets in the heads of Sunflowers. In 1979, Helmut Vogel devised a formula based on it. His formula looks like this:
On Saturday, Hilary also mentioned the Fibonacci Number. She has a friend who gets excited about all of the different places it shows up. I mentioned that Sunflowers always face East to greet the rising of the Sun. She replied, “Except when the sun goes down, they turn and face each other.” Another person told me that later that day. I don’t know if that is true or just a romantic folk tale.
I had so much fun interaction with folks, especially the little ones, at the festival. At one point, about a half dozen 4-foot tall girls were walking down the path in front of my easel. They all happened to look left at the same moment, and in unison exclaimed, “Whoa! That’s beautiful!” That’s when I knew the painting was a success.
This work was what I did over the canvas I re-primed after giving up on the Indonesian floating market painting I had stewed over all Summer.
The painting is acrylic and marker on 48″ x 36″ stretched canvas.
Price: $400 plus postage
I painted a Lavender Sunflower for our granddaughter, Isabella, for Valentine’s Day 2017. She loved it. Several of her paintings and a couple of mine that I had given the girls were destroyed by their wicked landlord, when he illegally evicted their family. They lost all of their toys and games, and household goods. The judge has awarded them restitution and punitive damages, that they are waiting to receive. I am painting simple daylilies and fantastical flowers to sell at reasonable prices so we can help replace some of the things they lost, as we find them at yard sales and thrift stores.
This painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $80 plus postage
This is a monochromatic painting of me and my wife, Bethann. It was done in the spirit of the old Instamatic, black & white snapshots of the ’60s. In that spirit, neither one of us is very happy with the outcome. It should probably have sticky black corners put on it and be inserted in a large photo album, to be viewed at our funerals. It does look better in person.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $80 plus postage.
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As the title indicates, this is my 5th self-portrait. I did this one using only two colors: Dioxazine Purple and Cadmium Yellow, with a Titanium White border and sometimes mixing them with the Titanium White for shading. The portrait is an accurate portrayal of my current mustache length, glasses and hairstyle. However my skin is never that pale, and I have never quite managed purple for my hair: blue,yes; but not purple.
Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $90 plus postage.
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This is my fourth self portrait. I painted it while everyone was neglecting my carefully set up display at Teich & McColgan Daylily & Hosta Farm last weekend. No one wandered through to see my more than 80 original works for sale at free admission. Once I am dead these works will be worth a mint! Van Gogh and I have much similar stories. We were both prison ministers. We were both disapproved by our older brothers and fathers. We both suffered from severe depressive disorder. The difference is that I don’t let my brother commit me to an insane asylum. I told him to go to hell and stopped talking to him. Vincent Van Gogh painted 46 self portraits before he committed suicide.
I have been painting for 17 months so far. Other artists tell me that I capture the ‘essence’ of my subjects; and that my paintings carry ’emotion’. I just know that I couldn’t do this before I had six strokes and now I can. Now it lowers my blood pressure. This is more a caricature of me than a portrait – but, oh well.
Painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $150 plus postage
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I’ve felt alienated in my own country since Trump’s inauguration. He is trying to dismantle the entire Bill of Rights using executive orders. So I painted myself as an alien, but with a wide open eye. We are watching. We are taking names. We are organizing for the revolution. I don’t mean for the Democrats to regain control. I mean for the capitalists to finally lose control. Trump is exposing what capitalism is really about. The Democrats worked hand in glove to put him in power and are doing little to obstruct his fascism. The true patriots, the ones who are now feeling like strangers in the land of their birth or land of their choice, will rise up to set things right.
The painting is acrylic on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.
Price: $200 plus postage
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Based on the first snapshot of my wife and me as newlyweds in July 1975, leaning on Poindexter, our 1967 Chevy Impala, in front of our ‘garden level’ apartment at 1900 Upton Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55411. I was 20. Bethann was 19. It was on the corner where my mom always said, “Lock your doors, bad neighborhood,” as we entered the city, growing up. We were young and in love, so none of that mattered. During the six months we lived there, our car was stolen. My sexy Oshkosh overalls were stolen off the clothesline in the laundry room and there was an attempted break in into the apartment on Thanksgiving.
Our first child was conceived there. It was wonderful!
This painting is acrylic on 24″ x 24″ stretched canvas. It is not for sale. It was my Christmas gift to my wife this year.
On June 8, 2016, I had open heart surgery to replace my aortic valve, which had been damaged by an infection. It all happened quite suddenly. We only discovered the damage on April 4, when I had what we thought was a stroke. It turned out to be a severe TIA. It was serendipitous in that it triggered a battery of tests that uncovered the weakness in my heart. It needed fixing quickly. The doctors at Penn expedited my case. I had my heart catheterization on May 9 to make sure I didn’t need any bypasses or stents.
At 6am on June 8, Bethann & I went to the Hospital at U. Penn. and checked me in to pre-op. Later that day, I was so happy to wake up alive! Bethann told me that my first words were: “Where is my keyboard? I want my keyboard.” I wanted to write. Once I got my keyboard, I couldn’t focus to write anyway. I haven’t been able to focus to write or to paint since the surgery. My days have been full of visiting nurse visits, doctor visits, walks, naps. I have researched subjects to paint. I did one sketch that was less than satisfactory. I finally decided to start over where I started in April; with a self-portrait. That is why I call this painting “Reset”. I’m using it to reset my creativity to get back on track writing, painting, editing, etc.
This painting is based on a photo I took using my Mac just before my surgery. My granddaughter Isabella saw my hair blowing around in my face when we were riding in the back of their car. She said I looked like a rock star with my hair in my eyes. I had already started painting this when she said this, but had not painted the face yet. In the photograph, the computer screen is reflected in my sunglasses. I decided to paint an opening door, instead.
Painting is 24″ x 18″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $300 plus Postage
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Shortly after we moved into a tiny house (500 sq. ft.) across the street from our granddaughters, I painted them life-sized on a canvas and mounted it on the outside of the bathroom door. The bathroom door is what one sees when one enters the front door of the house. I started painting this one of our grandsons last year. I finally finished it this week. It is based on a black and white photo of The Three Stooges. I “colorized” it and superimposed the boys’ heads on it, painted it on canvas and glued it to our bedroom door. The landlord and lady should not be concerned. I used clay based paste which remains water-soluble forever and washes off cleanly with warm water.
It obviously is not for sale.
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