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Beach-Painting-Finished

I grew up loving Annette Funicello and the Beach Party movies. They all seemed so magic. I also loved listening to The Beach Boys and their songs about surfing and being with their girlfriends on the ocean. It all sounded so magical to a young kid living in Utah. I didn’t think I’d ever make it to the ocean. Since then I’ve been to the Pacific and Atlantic many times, have been in the Bahamas and on the North Sea coast in Belgium. Those times were really fun, but I never felt that magic  . . .

Until Labor Day weekend. I was visiting my daughters in San Diego. We went to La Jolla, but there wasn’t a parking space anywhere and the beach was really crowded. We finally  parked on a hill and walked down to the ocean. There was a pier there. I found out later it was the very famous Scripps Pier where well known  photographers do their work. As we walked along the sand I saw people having fun surfing, soaking up the sun and just walking along. I don’t know what happened, but I FINALLY FELT IT!!!  The magic came. This painting is my impression of the feel that day. I hope you feel the sun, hear the waves and the seagulls, feel the wet sand under your feet, and most of all, I want you to have butterflies in your stomach like I did.

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Soldiers-and-Sailors

This is a painting of the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Monument in downtown  Indianapolis, Indiana. It is a commission for a man in the Navy in San Diego. He wanted it because he’s a sailor and his father was a soldier in the Army.

Basically I used geometric shapes like rectangles, cubes and triangles to come up with the picture. It was painted with linear perspective to give the feeling of height and depth. I’ve created the feeling of sunlight and shadow by the use of colors. The shadows have a bluish tint. The lighted areas have warmer colors like yellow and brown.

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Portrait-in-Primary-Colors-011

All colors are made from red, yellow or blue. These are the primary colors. Today I had my wife sit for a quick portrait. I squeezed those three colors on my palette. If I mixed yellow and blue, it came out green. Yellow and red came up with an orange shade. Red and blue ended up violet.

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White Bird 006

Norene and I do extensive travel to state parks throughout the midwest. We love the forests, the lakes, streams and waterfalls, but what we like the most is when we come across wildlife. We’ve driven past flocks of wild turkeys, through herds of deer, past squirrels, chipmunks and raccoons. This painting portrays a beautiful white bird. We didn’t see it at first, but soon we saw it’s brilliant white body against the black background.

This painting was done with a palette knife, no brushwork. It has horizontal bands of color contrasted by the bird as it stands vertically through them. The branches are organic compared to the geometric background. All of these, as well as the contrast between the bird against the dark forest behind it give interest to the painting.

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Umbrella-004
Here’s another watercolor. It’s of downtown Indianapolis while it is raining. What makes it look wet are the reflections of the headlights of the cars. The road on the downtown circle is brick. I haven’t painted each brick individually, but have put a few lines and random color splotches which gives the impression of the brickwork. Watercolor is so delicate. Everything has to be a hint of what is actually seen because it is so tricky to use watercolor, and mistakes can’t be corrected.

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Watercolors and Flowers 017

When I got my art degree, one of my professors told me “Real Men Don’t Do Watercolors.” I pretty much have stuck to oil painting. My uncle, LaVere Hutchings, was an excellent watercolorist, http://www.art.com/gallery/id–a2731/lavere-hutchings-posters.htm for some samples of his work. I  was overwhelmed by his talent and haven’t dared to try watercolor before. Finally after many, many years, this is my first real attempt. It’s such a different feeling from oil painting. It’s fun, though. Maybe I’ll try it again.

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Summer-Rain-003

I used to hate it when it rained. I thought it ruined everything. Later on in my life I started noticing that wet roads were like mirrors and there were beautiful colors in the scene. I wanted to do a painting of people on a rainy day in the summer. You’ll notice their reflections are upside-down below them and are slightly distorted. This give the illusion of being wet. Another important thing to me is I don’t try to do a detailed portrayal of the people. We really don’t see that in real life. I work on shapes and values. Look at the lady with the umbrella on the right. Her face is just two colors, but your mind makes you think it’s okay.