More Painter 2023 Watercolors

Posted by Skip Allen on

I do enjoy working with Painter’s watercolor. Here are a few more.

This first one is very tall…interested in that tall thin format. It is called “One Tree.”

Next is a floral, called, what else…”Bowl of Flowers.”

Hope you enjoyed the last two paintings. Have a Merry and a Happy!!!

20 responses to “More Painter 2023 Watercolors”


  3. Skip –

    I’m really taken by “One Tree.” (Now… Keep in mind the old joke: You know. A mother buys her son a green tie and a blue tie for Christmas. The next morning he comes downstairs wearing the blue tie and she responds, Wha’s wrongt?! You don’t like the green tie? ……..i.e., I like your Flowers piece too….much more playful).

    Anyway….back to One Time. A few unsolicited thoughts:

    Serene and thoughtful. Narrow format complemented by narrow palette all informed by your broad vision. That swash of sepia-ish brown elegantly accompanies the shades of purple [what an inspired choice – it wouldn’t have occurred to me] which, in turn, remind me of an aurora in the night sky – or one of those photos of deep space.

    I saw something like that sky decades ago driving an old Fiat Spyder with the top down in Arizona on a summer night during a full moon.It was bright enough, I turned off the headlights and just drove in the darkness under the light of the moon and the stars. The tone of the sky was a bit bluer but it still had that quality of glow you created in your painting. Peak experience.

    And, the fluidity of your sky blending so subtly with the fluidity of the waterfall – I could just gaze at that for a long time (which, of course, I already have and will continue to do).

    And then there’s the simplicity of the tree on the left balanced somewhat asymmetrically by the splash of mist on the right.

    Kind of amusing….I have 2,000 of my own acrylic paintings but I’d love to hang this one of yours on the wall somewhere.

    It elicits a kind of internal quiet. Do you ever sell high-resolution versions of your work?

    I’ve been following you for a decade – purchasing some of your programs – yet I’ve been a bit too overwhelmed by the complexity of the Corel software to learn it effectively. We once exchanged comments – I was being sympathetic about the assault you probably encounter from people expecting you to respond instantly to anything they seek. I hope this doesn’t feel like that.

    Anyway, thanks for sending this piece. I know how work can go into the Internet/Social-Media ether out there without receiving any response beyond ‘Like,’ vapid thought that response is, no matter how well intentioned. I just wanted to offer a bit more.

    Thanks much.

    Chuck

    ChuckJonesPhD.com http://chuckjonesphd.com/

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    Reply

    • Hi Chuck,
      Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments. As you stated on your site, this art thing is more fun if there is interaction. We have a few things in common. Back in 1969-1970, I was stationed in Davis Monthan AFB in Arizona. I had a yellow beetle convertible. I spent hours on the road at night. I was transferred to Moron del Fonterra, Spain in 1970. Upon my arrival I bought a new Fiat Spyder and travel all over Spain, with an emphasis on small villages and towns. I did bring the Spyder back to the States and I still had my “paid for” VW as well. So, I sold the Spyder to reduce expenses, but I surely missed it.
      I was excited to see circles…beautiful circles in your gallery. I was smitten by Black…and White and Sometimes Red (the calla lily) and the pieces in the gallery. When I was in art school completing my degree in Pottery, I was influenced by Asian pottery. Along with pottery, I loved looking at Japanese Sumi-e and Chinese brushwork. I never thought of myself as a painter; I was a craftsman. Even now, my expertise is with software and how to use it, not with painting. I used to print but didn’t like the results. I think that digital work should be presented in a monitor of some sort, so the viewer is looking at the same thing I am seeing. There are even some galleries that are displaying digital work electronically. Anyway, I don’t sell my work but have given it away. I enjoy the process more than the end results. I tire of the work fairly quickly; a couple of months and I could care less. But a year or two later, when I happen to see it again, I usually like the end result because the process is long forgotten.
      I also enjoyed your Iterations. I remembered a piece of mine. I think it was in the 80s, I was having a conversation with a friend who was doing an installation piece using bales of hay. While we were at the Museum, we got a chance to go into the storeroom and see some pieces that were censored from the current sculpture exhibition. This was at the Jackson Mississippi Museum. The pieces were nude fiberglass sculptures that were extremely lifelike. So, to mark the day, I made a bas relief piece using a 4 x 8-foot plank of black plexiglass, with three rows of stings of yarn and a couple of rows of tape. I made a pinch pot that was representative of a vagina. I filled it with hay and placed a couple of bright red strings of yarn in the opening and invested the whole thing in acrylic resin, which I then attached to the plexiglass in an appropriate spot. I enjoyed that process immensely. Anyway, it reminded me of your Iterations in a way. Gosh, I haven’t thought about that piece in a while. I do have it hanging in my house, but I rarely think about it.
      Congratulation with your successful showings of your work. It is quite impressive. When I was younger, I entered many craft competitions with some success. I have enjoyed walking down memory lane. Thanks for your comment and I am a big fan of your work.
      Skip

      Reply

      • Skip – Does replying to this get to you? Please confirm even if you aren’t responding in detail right now.

        Anyway …………

        Sounds like we are of the same era – I was at the University of Nebraska majoring in Chemistry and American Literature during the late Sixties (going on 75, here). In counterpoint to your other car story, I spent a summer (1970, I believe) wandering around the West and parts of Canada while living out of a blue Volkswagen Beetle. At one point, while in Banff, I accidentally knocked my prescription sunglasses off a dock at Lake Louise. I could see them on the bottom 10 feet down and, given the limits of my funds and the need to see, I went and got them. Diving that deep into a glacier-fed lake was … bracing. Thanks so much for your comments on my gallery. I’ve painted for decades alongside my long Clinical Psychology career, but only in the last ~3 years have I made my work public – which is about when I first started that website. Back to the importance of interaction about art: Almost nobody does that even though, in my view, the point of art (for me, anyway) is seeking to visually articulate something from that wordless internal Source deep within – something at the point of emerging is arising from outside of both language and image even as it is seeking to get itself understood or recognized or conveyed. A couple examples from https://www.chuckjonesphd.com/archive : 1. You mentioned the ‘Calla Lily.’ Thanks for that, too. It’s one of my favorite pieces and it has a story from 2020 (fascinating – and, perhaps, poignant – how much of life is about reminiscing): I was in a phase where it had just occurred to me that one could assure an abstract piece (rather than a concrete depiction of some object) by holding two incompatible ideas in mind simultaneously to see what sort of painting emerged as a result. In effect, I’m asking the question, “What do these seemingly dissimilar thoughts have in common?” Specifically, at the time I was thinking about Simple and Complex. I had done a series of those figures which stuck me as complex simplicity or simple complexity. I like playing with concepts like that. The day of this painting, however, I was also listening (this is very atypical of me) to the funeral of John Lewis in the background as I painted. James Lawson delivered a profoundly moving eulogy and, as he did so, that painting appeared. Very simple, yet very complex …. And, succinctly, the title ICON surfaced in my mind. Take a look at it again to see what you think. 2. You also described appreciating my circles. I love those circles. I don’t know if you read my descripti

        Reply

        • Hey Chuck, Yes, I get all the responses to my site. I have to approve them, which allows me to keep ads away from the comments. I will respond later. But to answer your concerns…I get all comments. Skip

          Reply

  8. Skip, they are beautiful. I hope you have a delightful Christmas, and that the cats keep you warm during this terrible cold spell. Be well in the new year.

    Reply

  9. Skip, speaking of tall paintings – too long to be posted on the DAAC website — many years when I bought our first home and my sons were very young I used to decorate the walls of our home with my paintings. My usual subject matter were scenes from operas.

    My guess is I was about 23 to 25 years old at the time. When I painted this tall painting for our front room — I was going through my “blue period”– painting mostly with a Monochromatic pallet.

    It was my 7’ tall my version of Wagner’s Das Rheingold showing the Rhine Maidens swimming around the Rhine gold with Albert nearby hoping to clutch one of them or grab the gold as a consolation prize. None of which shows up in this old polaroid print. Even then my paintings did not venture far from the realm of cartoon fantasy.

    In that red painting I was depicting Siegfried fighting the dragon Fafner. However for the dragon I depicted Albert from Walt Kelly’s Pogo. Sort of an inside joke I played on my opera friends. ((My wife, at that time, sang in the chorus of the Kansas City Lyric Theatre.))

    Thought these early paintings would give you a New Year’s giggle.

    Cheers, hope your trip to be with family and friends during the holiday was a happy experience.

    SJ

    Reply

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