Dear All,
Here is a sculpture of a lioness I am currently working on.  It may go into a couple of shows this fall.  This is made of clay, including the base, and is based on a series of photos I scrounged from some traveling friends who take good pictures plus some other references.  This cat is fired and what you see is what you get except that the finish on it is not complete.  I am fiddling with some golden highlights or maybe a more tawny color but am inclined to keep the color close to what you see--the natural fired clay color.

I think she looks like she's surveying her kingdom from a rocky hill and will probably name it something to do with that. 

I have finished the two paintings I did with the plein air group I took out in July and will get those on the blog soon. 

The Coppini, where I do a lot of my studio work, is closed for the month of August, so I am a little slowed by that as I've been taking the extra time at home to do a few long-standing projects.  But I have plenty to put on the blog and now might actually take the time to do it. 

Hope you are all well.

Jay

The Entomologist

Dear Friends,

Here is another early sculpture piece. The title is self explanatory. This cat is inspecting a beetle ( which, by the way, is superbly rendered if I do say so myself ), but has no intention whatever of actually touching it. If you have cats, you know this situation. This piece is about 12" high and a tad longer. It is made of water based clay, fired to stone hardness, and it sits on a base of hand rubbed wood.

I've entered this in a couple of shows and it's done well, receiving good reviews and winning prizes. Judges seem to like the looseness.

I did this one early on in my sculpture learning process and I hope I've improved some since then. But maybe not. You'll have to be the judge as I present the pieces as they came later. There are some horses and those will come along in the blog soon. I hope you like this.

Our place is a riot of purple color right now. Since the bad drought last year killed off much of our grass, even the native stuff, the fields have been taken over by the weed species. In our case, at least the weeds are beautiful purple prairie verbena. I should post a photo just so you can see it. Maybe I will.

Best regards,

Jay

The Sneak

Dear All,

I am trying to keep my promises to post more often so here is a cat I did a while ago. I like this particularly because of the finish on it which makes it look like old copper. The piece is about 6 inches tall and about a foot long counting the base. It is fired clay painted to look like the oxidized copper. It has been shown in a couple of big shows and has won prizes in both.

The base wood is hand finished with hand rubbed oils and is almost an artwork itself. Made by my art friend, Kathy.

This is one of my more favorite pieces as I think it captures the essence of the stalking cat and it has some nice decorative values to it.

It's for sale too, if you know anybody who needs a cat to decorate their place.

I have lots more to show you so keep tuned and I promise to keep up the contacts. If you are tired of receiving these as emails, let me know as I have others who would like to be on the list and I am limited in how many I can send to directly.

Have a great spring. We already have mounds of prairie verbena covering our place. Of course, that's because we have no grass after last year's drought. We'll take the verbena.

Faithful Reader,

Here is one of the sculptures I've done over the past year or so. This is one of the reasons you haven't heard from me. This African elephant was done from a series of photos taken by a friend of mine who was lucky enough to travel to Africa a few years ago and go on a photo safari. He was kind enough to let me use some of his wonderful work as model for this young African.

The piece is about a foot tall and about the same in length. It is made of fired clay and then painted to get the golden color I like on it. The tail, which I'll show in a later blog is made of wire covered with material and then also painted. This waterbased clay fires hard as a rock and is very durable. Will it break? Yes, if you smash it hard enough, but not under normal treatment for sculpture.

To answer a common question, yes the tusks are also fired clay.

I had a ball doing this piece and it sits in my home right now. But it is for sale at $350. You pay shipping. If you have questions, please feel free to ask. I have lots of pictures of this one.

Dear All,

I can't believe it's been so long since last I put something on the blog. Yes, I'm still in the clutches of a less than cooperative computer and between that and the lack of interest in photographing my work, I've had no enthusiasm for putting new entries out there. But I get complaints. So here is a piece I've had done for a while but it should be new to you. This is Louise, one of my own cats, sitting in her favorite spot--a sunbeam.

I do have plenty more oil paintings to show you, but I wanted to tell you that I am still doing sculpture and that is also a reason I've fallen off the face of the blog world. It's just too much fun. And it's time consuming. I've been learning a lot from Trace Guthrie, my instructor, and have even had my work accepted into a few sculpture shows and have even won a few prizes with it. I am sticking to what I know, meaning horses and dogs and cats. I want to show these pieces to you soon. One I am particularly happy about is a group of four horses running together. It doesn't sound like much, but my intent was to give an idea of the power and grace of a running horse and I think I've at least touched the edge of that. The problem with it is photographing it. It's fairly complicated. Eventually I'll get something good enough to put on the blog.

Here's hoping I get something else on the blog before next winter sets in. Please let me know you've heard from me.

Jay

Another attempt and hi again

Hi All,

Here I am again, after all these months. And this is the last of the first three sculptures I did when I started in that medium. Where have I been? Nowhere. Here, in the studio. But my computer went on strike. I was able to keep it going enough to do email and web surfing and handle some daily business, but it would not let me add images to this blog. Most frustrating. So it has to go back to the computer man soon, but somehow my niece, Sarah, who is visiting, figured out a temporary way to post the images. So here we are.

In the meantime, I have produced many new sculpture pieces, mostly cats, and am about to offer them to the downtown San Antonio gallery. Let's hope they like them. And let's hope Sarah figures out my problem with this computer so that I can continue to post images without her. I have many plein air pieces which are awaiting posting too, so there is a lot to catch up on.

This horse is fired clay, about 8 inches tall. It is painted to look bronze and is unmounted. It is full of action, which is the best I can say for it as the features are somewhat exaggerated, but it's kind of fun.

I hope I am soon back to you with more images of the art production of the past few months.

Best wishes,
Jay

Dog Sculpture

Dear All,

Here is the dog sculpture I talked about last time. This is one of the three first sculptures I did. It is not bronze, as it looks, but fired clay painted to look like bronze. The dog is based on my Aussie, Keen, but is not a portrait in that the ears are not placed as hers are. It was never meant to be anything more than a practice piece, but I was not unhappy with how it turned out.

This week my art friends and I went to the Pleasanton area, which is south of San Antonio, and painted wildflowers. Now this was not an ordinary spring trip. We've had two years of horrific drought which killed off a lot of the local grasses. This was followed by a record breaking wet winter and all of that contributed to the best year ever for wild flowers. Spectacular is not enough to describe the acres and acres of blue, salmon, pink, white, magenta, yellow. The flowers are everywhere--roadsides, fields, yards, pastures, woodlots, etc. We even found one of our best views in a sand pit area. I did three pieces which will need a bit of tweaking in the studio, but those will soon be on the blog. It was great to be outside painting again.

Jay

Very first sculpture

Dear Patient Friends,

Here, at last, are the promised pictures of my very first sculpture effort. I was quite proud of this right up until I saw the photos of it. It is meant to have a rough texture--sort of a "wet" feel, but the photo makes it look a lot less arty and a lot more "messy". Rats. I like this style of loose work and intend to keep working at it until I get it right. My instructor tells me frequently that one must pay attention to how shadows will fall on the work and keep that in mind when finishing a piece.

This piece is done with clay--a raku clay, in fact--and then fired and then painted to look like bronze. I rather like the bronze look to these pieces and will probably continue to paint my stuff to look like that. It gives me a good idea of what they would look like if I ever decide to actually have bronzes made. I've learned that is a very complicated and expensive process--not something I can afford to do. But these are original works that look like bronze and for the time being, these will have to do.

I have photos of two more pieces I completed at the same time. A dog and a horse. I'll put those on the blog soon. No I mean really soon. I already have the photos. And there are more sculptures in the pipeline as I am churning them out fairly quickly. It's so much fun!

Friends

Dear All,

Here is the second of the series of beach-woman-dog paintings. This one is much smaller than the first and is a square gallery wrapped piece. It is not framed and needs no frame. Again, this is based on my sister-in-law, Barb, and Maggie, the dog. For this one, I used the set of photos my brother took for me, at my request as reference. Because the photos were taken at the same time, the lighting was the same, but distance and a change in camera direction made the colors slightly different. This one is a bit more pastel in color. I am thinking of making a minor change in the female figure's face, as I am thinking the smile is not rendered well. Other than that, it is what it is. Opinions?

Jay

The Beach at Charleston

Dear Friends,

At long last, I am back to the blog. Here is a large piece I did this past year based on a photo I asked my brother to take for me last fall. I wanted to try a backlit beach scene and this is the result. He sent me several pictures from this particular photo session and I have a few paintings from it. I'll be posting those too.

This is Barb, my brother's wife, and their dog, Maggie. As you can see they both really enjoy the beach. And I really enjoyed doing this painting.

The painting is a studio piece, obviously, and larger than my normal plein air size. It's 24 x 28.

I have been painting all this past year, in spite of what you might think, but it's been in the studio and so I have been spending more time with each piece and not producing as much of it. Thus, less to put on the blog. And I also returned to some watercolor work. It has not been as successful as I would like, so you won't see any of that, but if I get anything worth sharing, I will.

More exciting is a new project--clay sculpture! I am working on animal sculptures and have been very pleased with the results. When I finish the three pieces currently on the table, I'll send pictures along.

So let me hear from you so I know I'm not sending along pictures into the ether. I'll be looking forward to it.

Jay

Pinguinos

Dear Folks,
I told you I'd be back. Here is one of my early returns to the watercolor medium. I think I've given the Spanish word for penguins correctly and spelled it right. If not, you can tell me I'm wrong and I'll change it. These are Gentoo Penguins, by the way, and I painted them from a photo in a magazine which means I can't use the painting for anything except practice, but I was pretty happy with this first effort. I sure like doing all sorts of animals.
Jay

"The Girls"

Dear Friends,

At long last I return to the blog with little excuse for having been away so long. I do note that the last post I made, which was in May, was the same time we acquired our new puppy and the rigors of raising a little baby pup--only 7 weeks old when we got her--have been distracting. She's a cutey though, and shows signs of being a great agility dog.

This portrait of three Labrador Retrievers has kept me busy too. I've spent most of the summer working on it one way or another. It took a while to arrange to have all three dogs together at the same time, as they live in different parts of the state, and we ended up bringing them all to my house so I could photo them together. That made it much easier for me rather than trying to match lighting and coloring from different photos taken at different times and in different places. Then I admit to a great deal of waffling on the background for the dogs. I don't think I spent more than a few weeks on the dogs themselves, but the background drove me nuts. I tried foliage. I tried a lot of foliage. I tried black, and orange, and green and ---you get the picture. It involved a lot of fooling around.

The issue was not helped when the mother dog--the one with all the gray on her face--passed away suddenly and left an owner in mourning and me feeling the pressure to put my best foot forward. Fortunately the owner and everyone else who has seen the painting and knew the dog are in agreement that I managed to capture the physical appearance and spirit of this beloved pet.

So now I am on to the next great thing. Watercolor. I have joined a class with a great friend of mine and am relearning technique after a ten year hiatus from the medium. It's been a great deal of fun and I'll be showing you some of the work as soon as I can. I promise! Soon!

Jay

Domestic Cat

Folks,

Here is the piece I did in Vie Dunn-Har's workshop last week. I am extremely pleased with it and am going to endeavor to use this technique in more of my animal paintings. This was so much fun to do. I've used abstract backgrounds in my animal paintings before, but this was much stronger than I was used to, and it works so much better. Vie does masterful botanical paintings and I would not even consider coming close to her lush foliage, but this gave me some ideas of how to present animals in a more interesting background.

This was done on 20"x 24" linen canvas, and we used a medium, unlike I normally do with my landscapes, where I use the gessoed panels and only turp to work the oil paint. It certainly made the paint flow freely.

I struggled the first day with the medium and the canvas and the subject matter, but learned a lot from that effort. The second day of the workshop I was able to start this and it suddenly became much more than I had anticipated. I did most of the finish on it the second day and tuned it up a little in my home studio this week, but I think it's done now and it is going to hang on my studio wall as a reference for future paintings.

The cat is our own Zelda. I used a photo of her sitting smugly on Steve's knee in front of the burning fireplace this winter. Steve's knee became the tree branch but the arrogance only cat's can produce is all Zelda.

I sure hope you all like this as much as I do.

Jay

Panda

Dear Faithful Readers,

Here is Panda, the Shih Tzu, a beloved pet of one of my dear dog friends. Panda lived a very long and happy life and was so endearing to her owner that she wanted a portrait.

This is an oil on gessoed board, 8"x10", and was done from a series of good photos supplied by the owner. The main photo I used did not have a good look at the eyes so I used one of the others for that. Can't have a portrait without eyes, can we? I liked the fact that the photo had the bouganvilla in it as that provided me an excuse to use some bright color to set off a black and white dog. And since the photo was taken in the owners garden, that lends something to the painting too.

I sure enjoy doing these animal portraits. I just like the subject matter.

Next to go on the blog, though, will be a waterscape taken from a photo in Charleston Harbor a couple of years ago. As soon as I get it photoed, it will go on the blog. Keep tuned!

Jay

Emily

Hey, y'all!

Here we have Emily, who belongs to the daughter of my friend Peggy. Emily runs her house with a strict paw and takes no nonsense from anybody. She was grandly gracious to pose for me in this beam of light so that I might appreciate just how elegant she is. Naturally, a painting followed. Emily eats well, a fact not hidden by her long flowing coat, and I did not choose to make her a bit more svelt. If she had been nicer to me, maybe--.

I really enjoyed doing this. My favorite part is the light glowing through the cat's ear. I did this pretty much entirely at the fall River Art Group show at La Villita, as a demonstration piece. You haven't seen it before because I was tied up with aforementionned surgery recovery and then troubles with the computer AND troubles with getting a photo which was in focus. I hope you like it now.

Jay

Ivanhoe Painting

Dear Folks,

Here is the finished painting of Ivanhoe as promised. I decided that I had to get this on the blog today while I had time to mess with the computer. As you can see, the background has changed quite a bit. The foreground has had heavy impasto added with a palette knife and the background trees on the left have been blued into the distance. The trees on the right have been developed more and the tape and posts in the background have been removed in favor of a more prominent shrub in the foreground. The shrub gives the painting some balance in its composition. I am very pleased with the action in this work. This is the sort of action I really like to portray in horses. Sally and I are discussing the possibility of entering this painting in a competition later in the year. I'll let you know what we decide. Also, I want you to know that for some reason, perhaps the compressing of the file, the color in the background is grayer than the actual painting. The trees on the left are more yellow than in this photo and the trees on the right have much more color to them.

Jay

Dear All,

I am sending along the beginning images of the horse painting I've been talking about lately. The lower image, picture taken in my studio, is the start of the painting. I concentrated at that time on the image of the horse and rider on a toned background. I felt that the horse was the most important part of this painting so turned his head a little from the photo so that he is looking at the viewer and seems to be ready to run right at you. This effect was enhanced by the fact that he has a nice white stripe on his face. This beginning was time consuming as I wanted the drawing to be correct.

The top image is of the painting about half way along. The background lights and darks are laid in and the relationship to the landscape is forming. This is important too, as the background helps focus attention on the horse and rider. At this point the background landscape is thinly painted and awaits a more impasto layering. There was still time to make some decisions on the background as you will plainly see changes in the final image.

This horse is Ivanhoe, who belongs to my friend Sally. He carried her successfully for many years in Eventing competition and is happily retired now, sharing his expertise with young riders. It keeps him busy and happy but does not stress him. His portrait joins that of Spindrift, another of Sally's horses I have portrayed. This painting is done from a very good photo she had of the two of them in competition.

Stay tuned. I'll soon get the finished portrait on the blog. I am anxious for you to see it.

Jay

Rainbow the Bichon

Dear Patient Friends,

This is one of the long ago promised paintings of my aunt's little Bichon, Rainbow. It's one of the many projects I completed while I was away from the blog for so long.

My surgery turned out to be more of a deal to recover from than I had anticipated and while nothing really went amiss, it seems I am slow to get my brain back in real gear after anaesthesia. I sort of knew this before but didn't think this particular surgery would turn into one of those long recoveries. Right about the time I decided I was ready to return to the internet my computer decided to have it's own brain failures and I've been fighting that for a month or more. I finally had to call a computer company and even they had to make extra trips. The end result is that none of my usual settings are where I am used to them and I am still thrashing around trying to get images where they are supposed to go--in focus. Let's hope you all get this.

This was a fun painting to do. I started it while at the fall River Art Group show as a demo piece. I finished it in the studio and am pleased with how it turned out. This is a cute little dog with a lot of personality and he was easy to paint.

I have finished the horse painting I have been working on for a couple of months and will get that on the blog soon. I took pictures of that as it progressed so you can see it as it went along. I'll keep this short in hopes some of you, at least, are still with me on the blog and would prefer I not talk so much. Let me know if you are still out there in computer land. It's always good to get feedback.

Best wishes,
Jay

The Flying English Setter

Dear All,

Here is the action painting of Dove, the dog I showed in portrait yesterday. D'Lynn had a very nice photo taken at a show which showed Dove in full excited extension. I made some adjustments to enhance the feeling of movement. I changed the angle of the tail to a more upright position to give the feeling of lift. And I lowered the position of the pole to let you know how high Dove can go. She really does air her jumps.

The two portraits from yesterday were done on gessoed board and required framing. This piece is done on gallery wrapped linen canvas and does not require framing if it is not desired. The colors of the background go around the sides of the painting and make a complete image without needing to be set off by a frame.

Again, this is done with a very light oil wash for the background, to let the brush strokes help with the feeling of movement. The figure of the dog is done in opaque paint.

I love doing this sort of work. I think it brings the animal to life to show it doing what it does best. And, much as most owners think they would like a more formal portrait, I think this is the way they really remember their beloved pet. Out there happy and laughing and doing whatever it is that makes them special to the owner.

I hope you like this as much as I do.
Jay

English Setters!

Dear All,

Herewith are the promised dog portraits I've been working on the past couple of months. There is still one more painting of the top dog which is an action painting but I haven't gotten that loaded into the computer yet. Tomorrow.

These two dogs belong to D'Lynn, one of the folks we train with at Eurodog Training center. The top dog is Dove, her current competition agility dog. Dove is a sweetie with a great disposition and plenty of drive to be a top level competitor. In fact, twice now, she has gone to the National AKC Agility Invitationals, where only the top five dogs in each breed in the country are invited to participate. Dove is currently the top English Setter in Agility in AKC in the country!

The bottom painting is of Belle, D'Lynn's very first English Setter from several years ago. Belle has been gone now for several years, but D'Lynn holds her in a special place in her heart and wanted a portrait of that special dog. I never knew this dog, but doing the portrait made me feel a connection to her as though she'd been sitting at my feet while I was at the easel.

I hope you like these dog portraits. I think they came out rather well. They are small, on my usual 8"x10" gessoed board, and were varnished and framed in matching frames before being presented. Now stay tuned tomorrow for the action painting of Dove flying her fences!

Jay