Oil Paintings

This is Axel again. It has been a while... I guess traveling three weeks out of the month or so will do that for you...

I have always been a bit afraid of doing oil painting. I actually took a class at BYU and did horribly. I remember thinking I was never going to do this medium again. Then I went to our next door neighbor's Brett art show and I was really impressed with his paintings and stuck with the colors and how he used them. He also said something about trying to make the painting feel like something and I realized I had never really done art as feeling. Mostly I have done art as representation of what something looked like. I really liked what he had done and I agreed that perhaps it was something worth giving it a shot.

Also, Terah has been talking about doing art and I thought perhaps this would be something we would get into together.

So I started with one for Xay. My mom had painted an orchid that I collected with my dad so I thought I would do one first of the orchid Xay collected in Nepal. It turned out kind of comic bookish, but hey, it was my first one.

I really like Van Gogh's painting style. Very quick but his pictures make me feel when I look at them. So I tried paint a few.

The first was one of the apple blossoms that he did (he was influenced by Japanese art at the time). I actual still almost like this one the best even though it is my second one I did. I really liked doing the blue background.

This is a close up. I liked doing the bark on the trees, not so much the flowers...

Here are a few others in no order I painted them in:

This one is after the Iris one VG did. His never turn out the way I like. They look like a picture, but doesn't have much feeling. I am trying...

Here is a close up of one of the Irises. I actually like the little flowers in the background better than the irises. They make me want to do one of VG's sunflowers.

This one is based on a Monet. I added a few things to try to make it look like Michigan in the winter. The mountain I guess means it is the upper peninsula. The picture is smooth except for the snow on the water. I globbed on the white to make it look more like snow. THere is a small red wing black bird on the tree which my dad and I used to hunt.

This one I did on a Monet as well, but put in the Doha Islamic Art Museum at sunset. It is one of my favorites. The colors are much better than this picture.

This is just a western one I did from a picture. Ugh, I hate this one..

This is a picture I took of Terah in Switzerland. I am not done with it. I don't like that she is on a rock. I am going to change it to grass and flowers. I kind of hate it. It turned out like a flea market picture. But it isn't done. I think it was Mark Twain that said 'Art is never finished, it is simply abandoned'. I like that.

This is one I did for my Mom. It is trying to be a 'Starry Night' over Manti Utah. It really didn't turn out, but hey, moms love anything you do for them. And it is actually looking at the temple from the spot where Grampa McGarry is buried, so I thought it would be OK. I have to wait for it to dry before I send it. I also need to do more to the sky. It isn't done yet.

Here is another VG rip off though I tried to do it on the Split, Croatia downtown at night. This picture got overexposed.

Then I did one for Linda Camilleri. She loves Dogwood trees so I did this one of Dogwood over a river.

I tried this Haystacks from Monet. With Monet you can't use any lines and you have to try to mix the paint on the canvas. I didn't do that, but I actually like how it turned out.

Here is a close up of the haystack. You can see it is just a lot of globs of paint on the canvas. It is fun to do.

Here is one I did of a VG. When he was in the insane asylum he painted what he could see and cypresses were near by. They are probably my favorite pictures he did. I added the two girls at the bottom to be Heavah and Dona. They fight over who is the one in pink.

I still love VG pictures the most, though I don't feel I have done well yet. I am going to keep practicing though. They are fun because you can do one quickly and if it doesn't turn out, you only wasted a night or two. Most of these are painted in about two or three nights of painting. We were watching Dexter through most of these. Funny, but when I look at them I hear the Dexter theme song.

Terah has done only one so far, but honestly it is my favorite of all the ones we have. It is one she saw in a pottery barn catalog and she did a great job on it. When I look at it I feel something.

Here is a close up of one of them. It has a great 'flowing' feeling

I can do one in about two days. Terah and I put the kids to bed and then watch DVDs together and I paint. She only painted the one but she promises she is going to do more. I am waiting!