Tag Archives: Iowa

Lotus of Dreamy Forgetfulness Series #03

36×36 oil on gallery wrap canvas

This is such a wonderful painting in person. I’m eating the Lotus Flowers again, just being in the same room with it. The photo is not doing it justice, as there are so many subtle layers of wet in wet, and various glazing attributes, along with a bit of impasto here and there. Contact me, via email, in the contact tab for pricing. Krishna Krishna is it’s subtitle. Thanks!

Lotus of Dreamy Forgetfulness Series. Installment #02

36×36 oil on gallery wrap canvas

In Homers “Odyssey” Zeus blows the ship to the island of Lotus Eaters where, there is no joy without calm. Some of his men consume the fruit of the strange tree, and they refuse to leave the island, instead choosing to stay with the lotus eating islanders in careless retirement.

Introducing the Lotus Series

You know that I’ve been toying with non-representation in my work. With this new piece, I have found a springboard into how I can most honestly approach the subject, and what you can expect of me this coming year. It feels so good to stand in the same room with this painting.

Crop Reserve

48 x 60 oil on canvas

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

24×30 gallery wrap canvas

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.

Light Rain

12×12 oil on panel

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.

Farm

12”x12” oil on wood panel

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!

The New Horizon

12×12 oil on canvas

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.

Keo Way @ 12th St. – DSM

11×14 oil on canvas

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.

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R16 and 270th. Dallas County Sunrise.

20×24 oil on gallery wrap canvas

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.

Dallas Country Grain

12×16 oil on wood- private collection

To quote, and borrow a phrase from baseball, “I’m seeing the ball really well right now,” I’ve got 10,000 hours invested in getting to where I can execute this sky and palette. If you go out early in the morning and look, meditate, on the color in the atmosphere, you will soon see that, starting at the horizon, all six colors (the three primary, the three secondary) are there. Follow me: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. From bottom to top. So fun to paint. Enjoy.

East of Adel

12×12 oil on cradled wood – sold

I am beginning to drive around the state of Iowa more often, scouting for those special places that may be painted in the early or late light of day. This was a barn just east of Adel, Iowa that I found interesting enough to sketch out. The light, however, is the thing I am after.