Monday, April 21, 2008

Painting tips

Aside from galloping around on a horse or knocking back some quality hooch, nothing relaxes me like painting. I've been putting the brush to canvas for about 70 years now, and I still manage to learn something new every time, as fruity as that sounds.

I always had a knack for doodlin', as far back as I can remember. Later, when I was serving overseas in the first World War, I saw some famous paintings in some frog museum. The subject matter of most of the stuff there was a little out of left field for my meat-and-potato tastes, but I sure liked the bright colors. After that I was hooked, and bought some paints as soon as I got stateside.

I guess I'm what you would call a realist painter. Mostly figurative stuff, like people I know, or horses. I never cottoned to that cubism or impressionism malarkey, or anything with an "ism" at the end for that matter. Call me old fashioned, but I like someone to look at my paintings and know exactly what it is they're looking at. What point is there to painting a picture if someone has to stand there scratching their heads and craning their necks sideways tryin' to figure out what the blazes it is? Nowadays people will plunk down more than the cost of house to buy something that looks like my cross-eyed nephew spilled his egg cream on it! Hard to figure.

Anyway, here's some shots of some of my work. These are pretty old, back from my time in Korea, but they'll give you an idea of where I'm coming from.

This was our company clerk. He used to wear dresses. So I thought it would be a neat to paint him in a manly pose, like an old Greek athlete. Ironic, I guess you'd call it. Boy, that kid sure had a schnoz on him.



This is one of the whole gang I painted for Mildred as an
anniversary present. It still hangs in my dining room.



Our chief surgeon. He was quite a card. This is what some guy wearing a beret would call "forced perspective."


Here's one of my thumb. About as conceptual as an old buzzard like me will ever get. It probably won't get added to the Museum of Modern Art anytime soon, but I like it.

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