Okay, so it’s not exactly my first blog post ever, but this is the first on my new website. I had another blog a few years ago that I posted for several years, mostly about my work and my process. It no longer exists, sadly. Somehow it was swallowed up into the bowels of the blogosphere, or wherever old digitalia go to languish.
This blog will have a similar focus, talking about my art and that of others on occassion, my process, my influences, subject interests (no, it won’t be ALL about cars and racing, but…) and whatever else my mind can muster of interest.
So, with this “new” start, for those of you who may not know my history, I am a former newspaper art director, illustrator, cartoonist and designer, whew. After that long chapter of my life ended several years ago, I began painting full time. I have tried every art “ism” around to “find myself”. It’s been an up and down struggle and has made me more than a little crazy at times. Just ask my long-suffering bride. I have done everything from large, detailed (some would say photorealistic) train and car paintings, to landscapes, both realistic and impressionistic, to caricatures in oils and watercolors, to total abstracts, and pretty much everything in between. My small studio runneth over.
I have always loved cars and motor sports of all kinds, so that is an easy target for me. Something about passion comes to mind. So almost ten years ago on a whim, I sat at my drawing board one day and drew a car caricature, the first one since my late teens, other than a few I did in cartoons during my newspaper career. It was the most fun I had had in a long time. My teen years came rushing back. My early art influences of the day, #Dave Bell of #Street Rodder Magazine, #Dave “Big” Deal, one of the most influential car-toonists in the last fifty years, and others became not-so-quiet muses banging around in the portals of my creative psyche. The next thing I knew I was starting one in oils on canvas, a little black ‘40 Ford Coupe (see said Coupe above) with wide whitewalls, my favorite American classic car. I was thrilled and at once pleased with something I’d created, a rare moment for me.
So, for several years I have continued to paint these little cars I love so much, not having a clue what to do with them, while working my more “serious fine art” into the mix. I still question myself daily, as I am sure most of my family do, on why I keep painting them. I have no clue other than they provide me with great joy and a healthy challenge in draftmanship, design, color… Hmm, sounds like art to me!