~ CHANGING FACES ~

I was hanging out at the Red Bluff Art Gallery and started sketching the face of a very nice lady named Tegwin Matenaer (a very talented pastel artist). She kept jumping up and leaving the room and as I kept on drawing, her face transgendered into the imaginary man's face shown below. I was using a very soft drawing pencil and a small felt stump for blending purposes. Tegwin left and hasn't seen the drawing.

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~ S A N T A ~

I grew up with those Santa Clause/Coke ads and have always wanted to draw or paint a Santa like those, so here is a pen, ink and pencil drawing that I did today. It's a small one and measures about 5 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches.

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~ A SMALL WATERCOLOR PORTRAIT ~

I sometimes get inspired by a face that I see in a magazine or even freeze framed on the TV. There was something about the eyes that caught my interest on this one. Doing a face in a small format (in this case 4 x 6 inches) is a pleasant experience.....seems like it's easier to keep under control. I use a Canson watercolor block that has 140 lb. paper in it.

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~ OAHU AVACADO TREES ~

The fellow that rented us the apartment had a huge avacado tree in the yard, and every day he would bring a bowl of fresh avacados to our patio table. I painted this watercolor of the tree....brings back nice memories.
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~ OAHU PALM FRONS ~

In 2003, my wife and I spent three weeks on Oahu in a nice apartment in a private home on the North East shore. This sketch was done while sitting on the front porch looking up at the palm trees. There were some cute little Gecko lizzards on the wall behind me.
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~ HEY MOM, I'M IN AN ART SHOW!!! ~

This art show came up suddenly, so I'm posting an invitation on the blog and if you are in the area - Please Come!! It's at The Red Bluff Art Gallery, a wonderful center of the arts that is owned by Anna Nelson and Phil Dynan. Click Here to visit their website.

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~ A BONHAM'S BEAUTY ~

Sometimes when I surf the internet something catches my eye. This was the case with this wonderful portrait of an old man w/beard. It is attributed to the German School, sometime in the 1800's. It was painted in oil on canvas and the original is 18.5 x 15 inches. I love the expression on the man's face - we can almost tell what he's thinking. This painting is for sale at auction on October 21, 2008. The time of the sale is 13:00 (PST). I'm showing a cropped detail of the painting here, so to see the entire image you'll have to go to Bonham's auction site by clicking here. While you are there you should check out their whole auction catalogue for the sale. You'll be glad that you did.



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- A Stream of Conciousness Drawing -

Sometimes it's fun to just start drawing and see what comes up on the paper.   I did this one today and probably should have it psychoanalyzed. My wife thinks so.........
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[This drawing as well as all of my other drawings and paintings on this blog are available for purchase. Simply contact me through my art website at www.jstewart.com]

~ BRANCHING OUT ~

Here is another tree study done today in pen and ink. One can get lost in the details and one does. Drawing trees is similar to doing puzzles, eventually everything fits together......or not. Maybe I could eventually become a branch manager..........

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[This drawing as well as all of my other drawings and paintings on this blog are available for purchase. Simply contact me through my art website at www.jstewart.com]

- SKETCHING FROM MEMORY -

I did this drawing today while trying to remember some faces that I had seen in the last few days. The lady at the bottom was the strongest image. She impressed me as a lady in her 70's hanging on to her youthful hair styling and 60's, kind of hippie style of dress. Yes, I do remember the 60's.



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[This drawing as well as all of my other drawings and paintings on this blog are available for purchase. Simply contact me through my art website at www.jstewart.com]

~ HOT STUFF ~

Here is a pen and ink sketch that I made today of a variety of peppers. I used a micron fine tip pen on very smooth paper in an older sketchbook of mine. It's interesting to try to suggest color when you are drawing in black and white. (is that possible?) Actually the small ones were bright red, the medium one was olive green, and the large one was deep black.

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[This drawing as well as all of my other drawings and paintings on this blog are available for purchase. Simply contact me through my art website at www.jstewart.com]

- Reflections on Pottery -

I grew up in a ceramic shop in my teens. My mother went from hobby to business and talked my father into buying a ceramic shop. Later on my dad built ceramic kilns and potter's wheels and through him I learned about people like Peter Voulkos and Otto and Vivika Heino. I had some instruction and threw some pots, and also did a lot of ceramic tile murals for commercial and private projects. I found this video on You Tube and it brought back lots of nostalgic memories. The artist is Tony Ivie at www.Bluefoxgallery.com and I hope that you enjoy the video.

ART RAGE - ART TOY

I downloaded a program called ArtRage 2 (www.ambientdesign.com) and fooled around with it. It gives you some textural effects and it has a very slick drawing interface. This is the first drawing/painting that I did with it........lots of fun!

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- The Finished Painting -

After fooling around with various color schemes, I ended up with this one and finished the painting. I may have been influenced by the hundreds of fires that we've had here in Northern California (smokey skies, etc.). The finished painting is in oil on a wood panel and measures 12 x 16 inches.
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- Add Color and Stir....... -

I decided to leave Corel and do a small version in real oil paint. It is 5 x 7 and the finished painting will be 12 x 16 inches. I'll post it when it's finished. I hope that you all are having a wonderful summer. It's been smokey and hot here (100+ today).

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- Revisions on the Sketch -

I moved the thunderhead over to the left, and added a few more elements (rock in forground, and more trees). I'm just about ready to work on the color sketch.

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- A Thumbnail Sketch -

Usually before I start a painting, I do several compositional drawings. In this case I used Corel Painter to do the drawing and then this drawing can be used to develop some color ideas before going on to the actual painting. This one is totally out of my imagination, which is a little harder than working from life or photos. I think this is true because we tend to go back to certain mannerisms or drawing habits.
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- A Brush With Sculpture -

Back in the early 60's and then later in the 80's I did quite a bit of sculpture, some of which was welded bronze and copper and also just working in found materials on flat surfaces. Here is a graphic piece from my website that has a few from the past. I still get the urge to work in 3d from time to time, but never seem to get around to it. The horse was a favorite of mine. It was about 36 inches high and had rockers on it. I made it with heavy metal rod and melted bronze over it.


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~~ MY NEW CD ~~

This is a bit off the drawing thing, but I have to toot my horn (so to speak) and let you all know that I am doing something with my music too.

I've been working on a CD, "Reflections - Classical Improv" that is improvised, and is classical and lyrical in style, and I just sent it off for distribution. If you'd like to take a look at it and hear some samples, you can click on the album cover (that's art, sort of) below and it will take you to the CD webpage. It is available for purchase on that page and will be available for download from Itunes, Amazon, etc. in a few weeks.

- Dragonfly Watercolor -

We have some interesting bugs in our garden, and some of the more amazing ones are the dragonflies. They come in assorted colors and sizes. They inspired me to do this watercolor. This one is obviously painted from imagination and any resemblence to the real thing is purely coincidental.

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A TRIP TO JERUSALEM -2

This was an amazing day trip - we went to "Masada", a fortress high on a mountain near the Dead Sea. We had to take a tram to the top and then did a lot of walking. It is so high up that it feels like you are in an airplane, when you look over the edge. To read more about Masada, Click Here.
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A TRIP TO JERUSALEM - 1

Hi strangers! I just got back from a trip to Jerusalem. I went with a God TV tour of 1800 pilgrims to the Holy Land. It was wonderful and I made lots of new friends. Here is a sketch of a courtyard on the other side of the wall where it is believed that Jesus was crucified. It was impossible to sketch here because of the crowds, so I did this drawing from a photo that I took there.
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~~ SOMETHING SIMPLE ~~

I thought that I would try some small still life paintings last week and this one of the attempts. It's really hard for me to 'not' put in all of the details, so I'm going to be working on keeping them simple.

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- Puerto Vallarta, 2005 -

The same sketchbook that had the jury duty sketches had some sketches of a trip that I took to Puerto Vallarta in May of 2005. I was exploring the downtown area and found a nice little park-like section, next to a creek. There was a restaurant there that looked like a scene out of "Casablanca" so I came in and ordered lunch at a table that had a view of the creek and did this sketch. There was a nice white egret in the middle of the water....I guess that he was looking for lunch too.......
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- Jury Duty, Another View -

The Van Nuys court house had a large plate glass window across from where I was sitting, and there was a nice view of some trees adjacent to the parking lot.
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- Jury Duty in Van Nuys, California -

Back in December of 2000, I was summoned for jury duty, and since there was a lot of waiting around, I began to do quick sketch impressions of those around me. I have this thing about not wanting to stare at people, so I'll look at them and then try to remember my first impression. It can actually be fun.......
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- A Glimpse Makes a Painting -

I saw this view when I was driving on a trip and the impact was strong enough for recall. I sold the painting in a two man show that I had in Palos Verdes (Malaga Cove) back in 2001?.

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- PALM SPRINGS -

Here is a painting that I started in 1998 and finished the other day. (So it actually took 10 years to paint... (grin)) I was painting with three other plein air painters, when I started it, but we lost the light and had to stop painting.

I finished it from memory, since I didn't have any photo reference. I sold it three days later so it definitely appealed to someone. I like the desert, it's expanse and dryness agrees with me. This is a small painting, 9 x 12 inches, and is oil on board.
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- Magnolia Watercolor -

I would consider this to be more of a sketch than a finished watercolor. I painted it on 100 pound hand made paper from India. Our magnolia tree is located at the top of a waterfall that we have in our side yard. This year it burst forth with lots of beautiful blossoms (all at once!) and I've been photographing it alot. The blossoms come out on bare branches before any leaves happen, and they are just about done. They have a very subtle, pleasing fragrance to them. .....(please click on the image to see a larger version)

- Down To The Sea in Ships -

Every once in awhile I stumble onto something that excites me. I've always been fascinated with museum quality boat model building and I found a webpage called "ModelShipMaster.Com". These people build astonishingly realistic ship models and have a deservedly impressive collector base. Here is a photo of a model that I particularly liked, and I hope that you enjoy the website... .....(please click on the image to see a larger version)

- I Finished The Book - Yeah!

I'm finished with the drawing book and have it online at Blurb.com. I highly recommend them for Self Publishing as their book creation software is extremely user friendly, and their book manufacturing seems to be top-rate. Here is a thumbnail layout of "A Sketchbook" for you to look at. Any and all comments would be appreciated. Thanks for your patience during this project...............(please click on image to see a larger version)

- BEEN CREATING A DRAWING BOOK -

Sorry that I've been neglecting the blog again, but I decided it was time to do a book on my drawings and I thought it would be cool if it had a few of the drawings from this blog. So, I dove into the pond of 'self publishing' and after trying a few online sources I decided to try Blurb.com. I spent a few days working on their downloaded book creation software, and then uploaded my document and sent off for a proof copy. It could take up to two weeks to get the finished product back. (can't wait!)

- PEN AND INK TREASURE -

I found this little pen and ink drawing a few years ago at an Austrian Art Gallery. It was done in Europe in the 1800's and the artist is unknown. The drawing measures 5 x 6 1/2 inches.


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- Miniature Watercolors -

I like to do miniature watercolors occasionally to loosen up. The other day I did three of these little imaginary floral sketches using 4 x 6 inch watercolor postcards. The paper is 140 lb., so it has a nice heavy feel to it. The image below is a little bit larger than actual size. I put them up on eBay this week to see what the reaction would be and If you click on the image below it will take you to the auction to see all three of them. We had another storm over the weekend and lost power for several hours. Winter is exciting around here.

- A One Line Drawing -

Somebody sent me an email with this drawing/engraving of Jesus in it. What makes it so special is that the entire drawing was done with a single line starting at the point of the nose and ending at the bottom of the drawing. Pretty amazing. The copywrite is noted as 1884.


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- Victorian Still Life -

Here is another small oil painting that I did when I was living in The Victorian Village of Ferndale, California, about four years ago.

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- The LA Art Show -

If any of you are in the Southern California area next week you should try to visit the Los Angeles Art Show in Santa Monica. It portends to be an extremely high quality art experience, on all levels. I'm having knee surgery or I'd be attending for certain. I went to one a few years back and saw some wonderful original works - everything from Wendt to Warhol, Bouguereau to Betty Boop, Rosenquistl to Rockwell. If you click on the logo below it will take you to their official website for possibly more information than you needed........

- A Foothills Painting -

Here is a small painting that I did from memory in 2004. I was living in Ferndale, California at the time and I was using oil on gessoed masonite. It was 8 x 10 inches in size. I have it listed on eBay this week at a very low starting price. It can be seen by
clicking here.


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- A Michael Jackson Memory -

In the early '80's I worked with a couple of scenic artists on a Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial. It was shot at Laird Studios in Culver City, California. We painted the ornamentation on the portal that you see in a couple of spots. We were there for several days and never even caught a glimpse of the elusive Mr. Jackson. Here is a You Tube version of the commercial:

- Another 'Perfect Storm' Sketch -

I was enjoying trying to depict candlelight within the limitations of pen and ink, and it was kind of nice drawing with a fire in the fireplace. Something about flickering light makes for a mysterious quality.


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- The Perfect Storm Drawing? -

It's amazing how much we take the convenience of electricity for granted. We've just weathered three storms here in Northern California with up to 100 mph winds, and lost our power for 30 hours. Luckily our propane fireplace worked fine and kept the house at about 68 degrees, while it was in the 30's outside. We got used to candles, and I did this sketch at the dining table, by candlelight. I felt like Ben Franklin. I did two of these using my Micron .005 tipped pen, and I'll post the next one tomorrow. Keep dry...........
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* * * * HAPPY 2008!!! * * * *

&Back from running around to family Christmas activities and am settling into 'normal', here at the Stewart household. A couple of months ago, I took a stab at doing a small painting that combines realism and completely abstract elements. I'm undecided about the results, but I wanted to post it, to get some sort of reaction. Let me know what you think.

PS I decided to offer it on ebay, at a very low price. Click Here if you'd like to take a look at it.

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