Delivered Portrait

I'm happy to say that I've delivered a portrait today and everyone is delighted.  This beautiful young woman posed for me and sat several times for this 20 X 30 inch oil on linen.

I've several new portraits underway and a new large canvas for a church --a complex scene of working children on the Sea of Galilee with Jesus visiting.  I've made several such large paintings for churches and am looking for more ways to follow through with plenty of other ideas. If you are interested, I'll send you details.

Mother Earth

Last week's plein air paining event in Kinston was lots of  fun, although the timing was difficult with so much activity in the city with crews getting ready for the weekend festival.  I mentioned how noisy it was as I made my first pastel at the bridge (River Willows was the only item I offered for sale at the show) -well, painting on the downtown side of the river was even worse as the grass was getting cut, tents and tables were set up, etc., etc.  We experienced a range of weather, too, from a very cool day on Wednesday to a pretty warm afternoon on Friday and it was breezy all that time.  I had a couple of incidents that strong gusts blew over my panels and they fortunately landed with the wet side up!  I always tell people that the way to spot a real Monet is to look for dust, dirt and bugs in the paint.  As someone who mainly works inside and ventures outside in mostly fair weather, I can appreciate the work of others who persevere in the worst conditions to paint on location.

Here is Mother Earth Squared  --Mother Earth visiting Mother Earth --a 10" by 10" oil

River Willows

This was fun to do. Mostly, it is being present to -- attending to a view of these hardy trees and standing for two hours in one place listening and watching and painting. By the way, this is a noisy place!

On to the next image( in the shade) and back to The Nature Center to make a labyrinth this afternoon -- helping a Girl Scout project.


Pictures to come!

Happy Fellow

Often when riding through the country I will stop to stretch my legs and visit favorite trees, vistas, and farm animals that attract my eye. This little goat was such a friendly guy, he walked right up to the fence and stuck his head through the wire. I scratched his head and admired his fresh face and what looked to be a smile. I think many of us respond to creatures that convey emotion or what we human beings interpret as such. Our wonderful Golden Retriever named Guinness has the most expressive eyebrows. You can read all sorts of things into his expressions, No one can tell me I'm imagining something when I detect that my dog is irritated with me whenever I'm leaving him in the house or that he's looking purely delighted after his bath and towel rub-down.

As I mentioned, I met this sweet fellow a few years ago on my passage through the country on my way home from church in Bentonville, NC. I always wanted to paint this image from the photo I was fortunate to have taken, and decided I would do so while recording the entire process. This video is about 13.5 minutes long, and has no audio since it just sounds like a lot of scratching anyway. I realize now that I hold my breath and sigh a lot while painting --quite revealing! --like I have paint apnea! Maybe other painters will be interested in observing some of the technique and method. It was very good for me to witness myself objectively and plan for my next paintings and any future videos which will definitely be shorter, narrated, and produced in a different manner.

This is an oil painting made on canvas that was previously toned and prepared with paint mixed only with linseed oil for a dried, smooth, primed colored and defined ground. I prefer an oil primed linen or thick canvas that is not too absorbent. When using a cotton and gessoed canvas I will completely cover the canvas by scrubbing in and laying in large zones of color. I'll create an under painting of a buttery paint mix that when dry will accept new paint on top without absorbing it through or below. It is a technique easily accomplished and makes for such a pleasant painting experience. I think few amateur artists ever have this pleasure, for painting on canvas duck as most do is sort of like painting on a piece of carpet. Even those who work with acrylics would benefit from priming their canvas with paint and acrylic gloss medium to tone and begin to define their work. After it is dry, working on top of a glazed oil or acrylic is a dream! It is like working on glass and painting becomes more like sculpture than coloring. Too bad this is rarely taught or expressed! If it was demonstrated more people would probably stick with painting since it would be a hell of a lot more fun and produce much more acceptable results.

Happy Fellow is sold and in the possession of a happy young couple. I hope I will get to paint all their kids someday!

Enjoy! --Jack Anglin