Children of the Rainbow - Family of God

Many, many years ago while on vacation with my sisters and their children and their children's children (confused?) on the Big Island of Hawaii, I snapped a picture of my grandnieces and nephews.  After developing my photos and viewing the different races that came into play in those young faces the thought that came to mind was "Children of the Rainbow."  It was then that I decided someday I would do a painting of those children.  Below is my start.  Call me crazy, but I'm looking at it as individual little portraits.  There will be a lot more children in this painting than was in my photograph - in fact, I plan to fill the entire canvas, which is 21-3/4 x 27-3/4 with children's faces.  I intend to take my time with this piece and use photos of my children as well as my nieces and nephews when they were very young - now those children have children and grandchildren of their own.  It has taken me long enough to tackle this one.  I probably will not post for a while on this particular project, but I will post at a stage of much further progress.

I am a little anxious, but excited about doing this.  I could say that if it doesn't work out I can just "dump" the project, however, I'm keeping a positive attitude about it.  Wish me luck.

Captive Audience II

Omigoodness...I cannot believe I have finally signed this painting as being complete. It has been really a project with a purpose and a history. I've done two other paintings of this pose and after completing the painting for her uncle in 2010, I decided that one day I would do one for myself. Captive Audience II - although showing the same little girl pose, she is now soon to be seven. The story behind the puppies is actually pretty amazing. Her mom fostered an abandoned mama Labrador from the shelter who had just given birth to seven puppies. The puppies were so brand new that their eyes were still closed. The plan was that my granddaughter and her brother would help socialize the puppies when it was time. My granddaughter's whole life at that time centered on the puppies and the need to socialize them. The whole family was commended on what a wonderful job they had done on those puppies. A vet who saw to one of the adopted puppies stated that he had not seen a puppy that young to be so well socialized. When it was time to let the puppies go to new homes, you can be assured that the tears did flow. The two puppies closer in are now part of the family - Piglet and Milkshake. Shiver, the third puppy in the back has gone to his new home. What I wanted to show here was a treasured moment in life.

Let me go back in time, starting with 2010 when her uncle commissioned the same pose but with specifics, like that exact color green ???

In 2008 I did the first of three paintings of this pose of my little granddaughter - she was about 3-1/2 at the time and I entitled it Captive Audience. Some may remember this particular painting.

For me, it was a realization of how far I've come in my painting skills since 2008.

Available Paintings

"Mahalo Ke Akua"
18x24 oil on stretched canvas
$500.00
Photo credit to Richard A. Cooke III
Photographer with National Geographic

"Can't Hide From Him"
18x24 oil on stretched canvas
$500.00
Photo credit to Phil Pegg, contributor to Image Library

"Forgiveness"
16x20 oil on stretched canvas
$370.00

This painting was created from my imagination for a challenge to reflect the
scripture...Psalm 40:2

Make A Joyful Noise

“Make a Joyful Noise” is the title of the piece I am working on now. I started it quite a while ago, but put it aside because I was having quite a few challenges with the concept.

This is the history of this painting. As a staff member of “Aloha Festivals” on the Big Island of Hawaii quite a few years ago I had to be in attendance at an event that took place at the rim of Halema’uma’u Crater. The event was the Investiture of the Aloha Festivals Royal Court. An Investiture is a ceremony to invest with authority or right. A large part of the ceremony was the appearance of the Hula Halau O Kekuhi (dance school) chanters and dancers. The chanters were so emotional and powerful in their delivery of the chants that I knew someday I would paint that scene. But how do you paint that kind of emotion? It has proven to be a challenge. I’ll try to take you through the process.

This is the preliminary sketch

Then it was transferred in two separate segments to a 24x30 canvas with the aid of a grid.

And more detail added


At this point I knew it wasn’t going to work because I had two main focuses, chanters and dancers, vying for the spotlight. After receiving a number of suggestions from artists on my art forums I decided to set it aside for a while, about three months to be exact.

I have resumed this painting and will show more steps tomorrow

Who Am I??

The following is an excerpt from the June-July 2009 issue of International Artist. In the “The Art of the Portrait” section of the magazine, Nelson Shanks was interviewed by Lauren Harris. The article describes Mr. Shanks as “…acclaimed modern Realist.” He spoke with Lauren Harris about his perspectives on the modern aesthetic, education, technique and realism in the twenty and twenty-first centuries.”

Ms. Harris asked the question; “What learning experiences do you feel are crucial in the education of a Realist artist today? What advice would you offer an artist beginning to seek his or her education?”

This is Mr. Shank’s response: “I think the first thing an artist should seek to achieve is drawing excellence, then color and then integration of the two. The strongest advice I could give to someone who seriously wants to be educated as an artist as opposed to a secondary school teacher or something else – is to avoid degree-granting universities and colleges’ art departments. There is such a conflict (within those institutions) on many levels, beginning with goals. The real goal (at most colleges and universities) is to get the degree – the piece of paper. Also, after generations of downward-spiraling measures of competence among faculty, the teaching level as dropped to a point where it is of little, if any, value. The aesthetic culture is derivative of the decreasing competence levels; therefore, what they define as art has ventured far away from anything I would often consider art, or have any interest in regardless of definition.”

I am a self-taught artist and I preface my first blog entry with Mr. Shank’s statement not to make excuses for the fact that I am self-taught, but to make known that one does not have to have a degree to be an artist…at least in the opinion of one of the foremost Realist artists of today. Nelson Shanks is also the founder and Artistic Director of Studio Incamminati.

I have attended art classes, studied countless artists and their techniques (thank God for the internet), studied and viewed the Masters, read as much on the subject as time would permit and basically just jumped in there with brushes loaded and painted. I consider myself a student…always learning, constantly striving for improvement. My only regret is that I wish I had taken the creating of art more seriously earlier in life.

Tomorrow, God willing, I will begin posting a piece that I’ve been working on for quite sometime. Fortunately, I’ve kept a photo record of the process and will take you through the trials and errors of this piece.