Four years after I first picked up a paint brush, I still don’t consider myself to be a real artist. Part of that is that I live with an actual fine artist, but the larger part is because I am a novelist and a photographer. Though I enjoy painting, it is a distant third for…
Visual Arts, and especially painting, suffer from the same dilemma that confronts writers of fiction: that is, a lack of specificity and clarity in defining its genres. When discussing painting, it is more common to think in terms of styles than genres, so we will call them that here. While fiction has dealt with the…
Click on the link below to read my latest blog post and to see my portrait of the handsome Bill Jones Jr. đ
As a child of the 1960s, I am drawn to photos taken during my youth. Colors were primary; cars were large, loud, inefficient, and unapologetic. Gas stations were a way of life. No refilling every two weeks for that lot. You bought gas often and since it was cheap, you liked. Filling stations were like…
As a multidisciplinary artist, I find that passing time has different effects on how I perceive the art I create. The same does not seem to be true for others’ art. If I like another artist’s piece, I will always like it. Occasionally, as I grow more in my understanding of art, my tastes broaden,…
I am not a trained artist. I am a photographer and a novelist. Painting is a retirement hobby. I do have, however, an artist “wife coach.” Seeing her paintings develop and seeing mine are two different experiences. Maria’s paintings bloom like flowers in early June. You can tell from the start they’ll be lovely, you…
I started painting in oils in early 2022, and although I’m not sure I’ve improved much, I am taking it more seriously. Here’s an effort from last year. “Wodaabe Men,” oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches, 2023, Bill Jones, Jr.
Reprinted with permission from thisblogblank.wordpress.com, 12/19/2018. After watching my wife work on a couple of her oil paintings, I’ve come to realize that producing a work of fiction is very similar to creating a painting. Too many new writers have unrealistically low expectations about how good a first draft can be due to an overabundance…
Edward Hopper, 1882 – 1967 was an American realist painter, famous for his simple compositions of American life that often featured a single light source, often coming from a window. Perhaps his most famous painting was Nighthawks (1942) below. Maria and I stumbled across this video of photographs inspired by Hopper’s work and thought we’d…
The Artists' Sanctum 