Now to call the cows home. Stay tuned.
Work in Progress
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Born Day
I usually stay on a subject for a series of takes and sketches. I’ve reached the finish line on this one.
It is Yours
This is a funny little landscape that I did almost unconsciously, and quit when I knew it was enough. It’s a little prize of the process we honor every hard working day, and so very interesting in a subtle and simple way.
Detail of Black Baldies
I feel this is a strong image of Iowa farm life.
Black Baldies
Latest works. Colors are just starting to change.
Untitled Pasture 03
Untitled Pasture 02
Untitled pasture 01
Art World
Portrait of a Young Lady
I have always drawn the faces of people. I just love to capture them looking at you. I’ve been away from portraiture for a while but, I’m back!
A little reel to prepare for First Friday of the Month Event.
Untitled elevator
Untitled Vines
Every painting is a reach in a new direction, or place. The journey is made until the brush is put down. Beginning, middle, end.
Painted the neighbors house
Athene
A proposed pedestrian bridge to be built in West Des Moines connecting Racoon River Park and Walnut Woods State Park. Very exciting.
Untitled Sunrise
Because I constructed this large painting straight from the imagination, you can count me out as a realist. From the imagination counts as romanticism, and if it’s considered not ugly, it then falls within Romantic Positivism.
It’s a work in progress, as I see a few things, a few values worth fixing. Maybe some telephone poles. This painting is rather big at 4 feet by 5 feet and, I am getting very comfortable with the larger paintings. Stay tuned!
Amish Harvestore
This is an exciting painting. The unified palette being the reasoning. I gravitate toward the secondary colors, and this one is exemplary of this focus on orange, green, and violet, with a touch of blue in the Harvestore Silo and the faded alizarin crimson in the sky and along the horizon.
Bus Route
The early morning bus ride is often in the magical time of day for most kids who live out in the country.
Brenton Farm Silos
Slap
Hostile and spiteful actions are rarely forgiven from a mostly caring audience. As a celebrity, it was already doubtful as to his contribution to the vitality of the art form. Someone is owed far more than an apology.
What if…
Port
You see yourself as a shipwreck, but we see the treasures glowing inside, beneath the oceans in your eyes.
Night and the City
This sky will not let me go. So, one more before I attempt a larger one. Enjoy.
Iowa Farm Night III
I kind of like how this little series is developing. Time to try it on a larger scale. Be back soon!
Iowa Farm at Night – No. II
I continue to experiment with the many directions one feels are necessary to explore with oil paint.
West End
This is a larger version of my last painting. It was an hour later, so the pedestrians have changed!
Light Rain
I consider 10th and Locust, in downtown Des Moines, my neighborhood as it is three blocks from my studio. There is a rather decent Italian restaurant in the building you are looking at, along with the Temple Theater venue for live events. Across the street to the west is a Starbucks, also very convenient for coffee and meetings.
Portrait of an Unidentified Apostle with Donkey
12×24 oil on canvas
Keeping in mind that I am not a religious person, in fact, a recovering catholic as I’ve often called myself, I’ve often imagined illustrating a book of the Bible. Daunting, but probably fun. From what I understand, the apostles were all teenagers when they were called. This is why I would paint them as very young looking, as in the depiction here.
Serenity Close
It took me a long time to finish this painting. And it’s brighter, with more of a pastel palette than this photo delivers. It’s so soft and quiet. One you have to see in person to allow it to complete its sentiments of the day.
Farm
While I am studying and formulating my next ideas of the landscape and it’s language, I’ve delved in to highly abstracted observations in an effort to better solidify my path and direction. I did a series of three 12×12 square panels, this being the first. Stay tuned!
Sauk Country
The latest in the Iowa Sheep series which has found a home in a private collection.
The rural Iowa land scape continues to inspire this painter to reap the beautiful and true from the simplicity of eternal forms that surround us.
Escape from the Dog Park
Dogs on the loose break all the boundaries.
Woman with Dog
This is a study for a large 4×6 foot painting. I have been considering abstraction and how I might approach the matter. It seems I’ve reached some type of summit in pure representation art, and now want to begin to divide my time between the two.
Who knows, I’ll never know, if a contribution of something uniquely my own can be considered as class A abstract art, if I don’t venture into this space?
Young Frida Kahlo
From a black and white reference photo taken before her devastating accident. Enjoy.
Chagall II
Kind of like drinking, the funny thing about painting is that you never really get the hang of it. I say this with all seriousness aside, for this is not really a good comparison, nor is it true. My college mates and I had many a laugh about how we failed at drinking most all the time.
The thing is, when it comes to painting, often one’s expectations are explicitly clear but results vary, and this keeps us in the painting game.
Once you have 10,000 hours in, the question still arises, “what to paint?” And, “How shall I paint it?” “What art movement or style am I most closely related to?” But why do we pay attention to such reductive talk? It is because we we are often asked such questions by galleries and collectors.
In the end, one must choose how to make the greatest impact, paint your most astonishing art, give birth to your most honest contribution to the vitality of any art form or style. This is what we are charged with delivering. Like they ask in the business world, “what is your deliverable?” In the case of painting, it’s your honest self.
Chagall
I found this Chagall photo reference compelling enough to paint, and this is pretty much alla prima. The background and the shirt are untouched and remain the tinted crimson background color that I prime all canvas.
One of the modernist’s, he advanced the vitality of art by his mastery of cubism, Fauvism and Surrealism.
Diego and Frida
Late in 2021, I began to study the methods and approach to painting of Paul Cezanne more intensely. Here was a man who proclaimed “With an apple, I will astonish Paris.” This attitude struck me as the very attitude necessary to face a blank canvas every day. To choose to paint, to make the sacrifices, one must work very hard to do the very best work one is capable of, and one must believe that a serious contribution can be made to the very vitality of the art of painting in our time. This is what I am attempting to do. I cannot let any part of history escape me in order to fortify and support each brush stoke I choose to make. I know this probably all sounds so serious, and it is, for the work one does with the mind, the heart, and the hand together, is the most profound work one can do.
Having said all that, I had some fun in attempting to focus on the muses of Cezanne with this effort. I found an old black and white photo of this historic couple to practice some of the aforementioned methodologies, and this is where I shall stop on this one and move on to a new blank canvas. This is my first painting of the year 2022. Cheers.
The New Horizon
2021 has come to a close with this last plein air study. Here I now stand, after following the rules of classical form for five years of painting, at the precipice of knowing that what lies ahead is toward the abstract. In order to avoid painting another ho-hum landscape, albeit ones with sound harmony and sensibilities, I’ve realized, from recent in-depth studies of the principles of Cezanne, that true art comes from the corruption and violation of nature. One is otherwise making a replica or a copy of her. The picture is the thing. It is its own thing. A two dimensional thing that must be created in its own right. I’m setting out. Wish me luck.
4240
This is, most likely, my last signed painting of 2021. A little 11×14 house commission. Next year, I intend to turn a corner, instilling some new painting direction into my work. Stay tuned and Happy New Year!
Howard
Occasionally, I accept commissions, some random image strikes me, and I accept instantly. This was the case with “Howard.” This is, most likely, my last painting of 2021. A year in which I signed 45 paintings, with a goal to paint and sign 52. I fell short, but oh what a year it has been. My world changed a bit for the better when I acquired a new downtown studio in early March of this year. That north light has served me well. Mark my words here, 2022 is going to be a fantastic year of painting. As Cezanne is quoted to have said “with an apple, I will astonish Paris.” Stay tuned!
Keo Way @ 12th St. – DSM
The north view looking out of my studio in downtown Des Moines at approximately 4:00 PM on a misty Friday night. I had been reading Erle Loran’s book on Cezanne, and it has influenced me. The color planes, the open palette, the lines, and the means, which were his own, by which he created depth.
Continue readingThe Golden Gate
I lived in California for five years in the early 90’s. As a school age kid, I was a California dreamer. Volkswagen beetles and flower power seemed very alluring to me. The entire west did. I eventually discovered it all and, the west and its beauty became my inspiration to paint. The Golden Gate Bridge represented the entire promise of what the west had to offer. Today, it is a vastly different cultural and political climate but, the beauty remains. This painting will most assuredly find a home.
Air Show
I started this air show painting last week, from a reference photo of a Colorado friend who attended the show earlier this month. Though the scale was a bit daunting at only 11×14, I finally got around to finishing.
Racoon River in Water Works
This is the result of a two-hour plein air excursion in Des Moines. Though it is not finished, I am hesitant to paint on it again to guard against altering its freshness.
128 Corn
I have just a few adjustments to make, and then I’ll sign this one. Edit: you are now looking at the updated and final version. Thx!
R16 and 270th. Dallas County Sunrise.
I’ve been driving around the surrounding farmlands this summer and fall, taking photos of future paintings. I just got around to facing, and finishing this one, after starting it a month ago, and being intimidated by the light in it.
12 Sheep
It’s rewarding to knock off a small painting of, say, 12×16 but, I’d like to increase my production of larger paintings such as this one. This is still a work in progress and I’ll only fix a few small details.
Flock B
Farm life subject matter is something not to be overlooked in Iowa. In fact, it’s a challenge not to consider when looking for striking compositions here in the prairie.
jeff klisares 