Wall Doxey Path

There is a path around the lake at Wall Doxey State Park in Mississippi. I took a walk around it early one morning as the sun was rising along with the early morning mist.

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Video Demo

Stopping By Woods

This painting is designed from what I saw walking beside a wooded area one day this fall. I was struck by the contrast of the bright autumn leaves against the dark massed foliage and massive shapes of trees on a gray day.

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Down Riverdale

This is a typical scene looking down one of our nearby streets in the fall.

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Nancy Baby - pencil drawing

I am taking orders for pencil drawings for Christmas gifts. All I need is a good photo, preferably with some shadows. Drawings are on 9 x 12 inch acid free paper. Price: $50.00. Shipping and tax will be extra if it applies.

Monica - pencil drawing

I am taking orders for pencil drawings for Christmas gifts. All I need is a good photo, preferably with some shadows. Drawings are on 9 x 12 inch acid free paper. Price: $50.00. Shipping and tax will be extra if it applies.

"Lakshmi" Pencil Drawing

I am taking orders for pencil drawings for Christmas gifts. All I need is a good photo, preferably with  some shadows. Drawings are on 9 x 12 inch acid free paper. Price: $50.00. Shipping and tax will be extra if it applies. 

More portrait practice

I have been doing more portrait practice, some from life. Some have been better than others. I took some pictures recently of this young lady and with her permission, did this charcoal portrait. 

More Pencil Portraits

Well, I am really getting into portraits these days. I just finished and shipped off two commissioned portraits which I cannot show here until after Christmas. 

I am learning a lot as I practice and make mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes I was making was to place the sketchpad in my lap and draw while looking at my subject in front of me. In other words, my drawing surface was perpendicular to my subject and the perspective was distorted. The drawing would look fine in my lap, but when I picked it up and looked at it straight on, it would look squished - too short from top to bottom.

I am also being more careful in the early stages - trying to get everything just right from the very beginning including angles, placement of the features etc...

Anyway, here are a couple more pencil drawings. The first one is my son, Lincoln, and the second one is my mother circa 1953 or '54. She was a beauty.

I drew both of these while looking at photos on my computer screen...with my sketchpad held in the same plane as the subject. 

Let me know if you would like to commission a portrait. It would make a nice Christmas gift, I believe.

Free Christmas Portrait Promotion

Between now and Christmas 2017, I am offering a free pencil sketch portrait as an added bonus for buying a painting.

I am in the process of practicing my portrait drawing skills in the hopes of doing more commissioned work, so this is my chance to work under these kind of conditions and strive for excellence.... and maybe sell some more paintings.

So, here is how it works. You buy a painting, you get a free portrait. After you purchase the painting, you can then decide if you want a portrait of yourself or someone else... or even your dog or cat. Send me a high resolution photo, preferably with some good shadows on one side of the face. I can send you your finished portrait along with your painting in the same package to save shipping costs.

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Pencil Rembrandt

I drew this while looking at one of Rembrandt's famous oil self portraits. He did about 100 of them throughout his lifetime. I think this would make an elegant statement on anyone's wall. I think it would look good in a black frame. 

Image size is 8 x 7.5 inches on 9 x 12 paper.

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Portrait Practice with Russian Generals

These are drawings from my sketchbook. I am practicing my ability to draw portraits from life... or in this case, digital images online. These images are drawn by looking at oil paintings by an artist named George Dawe. George lived from 1781 to 1829 and painted a series of famous portraits of Russian generals. These generals fought in several conflicts, most notably the defense of Russia against Napoleon. Leopold had a famous niece - Victoria, who later became Queen of England.

Ivan Shakhovskoy

Leopold 1 King of the Belgians

Dmitry Golitsyn

In the Corner of the Paddock

Here is a painting using a limited palette which I learned from a previous exercise. I tried for an "emerging from the shadows" feel with this one. Rendering the foreground straw was tedious but fun.

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4th of July

This one is done is my response to the Copy challenge. I wasn't thinking about copyrights or anything and just went right to one of my Andrew Wyeth books and copied one of his loose untitled watercolor studies of Karl Kuerner with a dead deer on a snowy hillside. I then realized that it might be illegal to have done this even though I am not planning on selling it. Wyeth works are not in the public domain.

Regardless, I learned a lot, especially after trying to match his color palette. He gets a lot out of just a few earthy colors with some mysterious cold grays and very subtle greens showing up here and there. When I saw these colors flowing across my paper, it was kind of magical to see the way they could suggest a lot with a little.

Then I did this painting based on some photo reference I had of a local 4th of July parade from years ago. I removed a lot of extra background stuff as I was going for that stark Wyeth quality and some of that mysterious feeling in the poses. "What are those guys doing out there in the road? Why don't they look happy?" I also forced myself to draw everything without using any of my graphic designer tricks with transfers and tracing... thinking that is what Mr. Wyeth would have done.

The video of this one should be ready soon. 

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Peaceful Front Porch

A peaceful relaxed view of a typical front porch in the summer in Tennessee. This one is somewhere near Columbia. I used a little colored pencil near the end and some gouache touches. Video below.

Eris the cat video

Eris the cat

This cat pushed on our back door this past winter and came into our house. After finding the owner, we agreed to take care of her until the owner gets an apartment of her own and finishes school. So...we will see. 

I am putting together a video of this painting, so check back and see if it is ready.

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Creek In The Woods

This one is entirely from imagination, but it reminds me of many places I have been. Check out the video.

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East Tennessee Creek

Original painting opening bid is $40.00. Click on the image to see it larger. This is a creek near Tellico Plains, Tennessee.

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Wolf River Trail Outing

Here is another view of our nearby hiking/biking trail near the Wolf River. I used some torn sponges to add some leaf texture, which is something I haven't done in a while. I also made a video

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Backyard Blues

We have only three blueberry bushes in our backyard, but this season we have, so far, filled up at least three mixing bowls. 

I have painted these with the idea of showing them as they are, some ripe and some unripe, curling leaves and stems, shadows etc...

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Shelby Overlook

This is the second of two plein air paintings I did recently. I sat in a local park (Shelby Farms) and finished this one just before a big thunderstorm came up and nearly blew me off of my chair...but as you can see by the painting, it was nice and sunny when I started.

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Morning Ride

This was a plein air painting done on a summer morning. As I sat there painting, a lady walked by and asked if she could take my picture. She said she did not usually see people sitting and drawing. I was quite a curiosity.

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Little Red River

I set up my easel along the bank of the Little Red River in Arkansas and did this quick pleinair painting. I put it away and kind of forgot about it until I pulled it out recently and decided to post it here.

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Fishing Pond

Another look at one of the fishing ponds near Greenfield, Tennessee.

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The Shed

Just an old shed in Greenfield, Tennessee. I did this pleinair and touched it up a little back in the studio.

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Swing

My brother tied a rope to a tree above the pond in the field near his house in Greenfield, Tennessee. The boys had a lot of fun that day.

I enjoyed rendering the sparkling water and the reflections. The suggestion of waves/ripples follows the movement of the swing.

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Soybeans

This is a common sight in West Tennessee and many other rural communities in the south. Close to harvest time, you can walk through the fields, break open the pods and chew on the beans. They have a unique flavor. 

Artistically speaking, I was attracted to the fuzzy texture and the subtle color changes.

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Obion River no. 3

If you are willing to get a little muddy and you dress right to protect yourself from mosquitoes and saw briers this is a typical sight in the Obion River bottoms after there has been a lot of rain.

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Obion River no. 2

This is another treatment of a painting I did several years ago. The Obion River is in northwest Tennessee. It has a rich history including tales of Davy Crockett and the Civil War.

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Obion River Muddy

​This is Davy Crockett country in the forks of the Obion River in northwest Tennessee. There is a quiet stillness in areas like this, where the breeze doesn't blow and when the tree frogs are between choruses.

The crisscrossing branches have a reaching, finger like quality to them as they stretch out toward the still water.

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Across the Pond

I went out on a quick little painting excursion this afternoon. I left the Wolf River Trails walking path and set up my stuff down by a pond. The sky was cloudy but there were still some nice reflections.

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Wrenches

Just a closeup look at some of my tools hanging from the pegboard in my garage. Some of these belonged to my father. The textures, the colors, the lights and the darks appeal to the artist's eye. The memories are an added bonus.

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Lonely Road 2

This is a mood-inducing painting. Driving across the country at dusk is often a lonely experience. Hopefully there is resolution at the end of the journey.

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Elk River Guest Ranch Pastoral

My son worked on a guest ranch (Elk River Guest Ranch) last summer and brought back a lot of photographs. This is a design based on one of them.

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Bass and Bream

Subject matter is a typical scene on a farm pond in rural Tennessee. This pond is great for nice sized bass. I always use a dark colored plastic worm slipped over the hook just right to give a realistic wiggle through the water.

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Dixon Gardens Path

Dixon Gallery and Gardens is a beautiful place to have a leisurely walk, contemplate the silence and identify trees and plants.

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Zion Park Study 2

Another of a series done from reference photos supplied by my son from a recent trip out west. I added some extra shadows and zoomed in on a section of a much larger photo.

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My son recently returned from a trip out west and brought back a lot of photo reference for me. This is my take on a scene from Zion National Park. This is painted on Ampersand Aquabord and will be sprayed with a clear varnish before shipping.

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Two Lamps

These lamps have been sitting around our house for as long as I can remember. I like the way the light goes through the oil.

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Vase and Apple

I don't do still life paintings often, but it is fun on occasion. It is almost time to get some flowers for this vase in a week or so.

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Stump

Just a stump in a field. I liked the textures and colors and the bleak aspect of the lone stump in a big field.

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The Gonce Farm

This is the land and the barn my father worked in during the summer while he was in High School i South Pittsburg, Tennessee.

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Maple Bark

It was a gray, drizzly day as I sat next to the cabin window in Greenfield, Tennessee and painted this painting​. I enjoyed depicting the texture and color of this maple tree. This is my first painting of 2017.

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