Untamed Land

Untamed Land
Untamed Land

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Colors of the Earth

This is what I have been working on for the last few weeks. It is an 11x14" acrylic of a Short-eared Owl. The mood and lighting are typical of the drab light, and rich, earthy colors of Alaska in the fall. I know that the depiction of chaotic grasses and weeds are not the most aesthetically pleasing subject matter for paintings, but I am compelled to return to this theme again and again.
This painting seemed to take forever, and I still wanted to build up the vegetation even more, but I had to stop somewhere.
In earlier years I used to paint with much finer detail, but now I no longer bother.
Since I'm on the theme of weedy fields, I'll include some earlier paintings with grasses and weeds. This is an 11x14" Golden-crowned Sparrow.
Lark Sparrow, 11x14"

Lincoln Sparrow, 12x16"
White-crowned Sparrow, 9x12". Judging by how my sparrow paintings sell, I'm the only one who likes sparrow paintings. I did sell two paintings yesterday, Painted Mud, and Raven Talk.

3 comments:

tess stieben said...

I find sparrows wonderful, maybe one has to be an artist to appreciate the glorious subtleties in these wee birds. Congrats on the sales, did you sell them through your web site?

john said...

The woman who bought the paintings was a longtime collector of my work when I lived in Arizona. She lost contact with me when I moved to Alaska because I did not have a website. Recently she stumbled across the website, and called me. That is how I use the website to make sales. They have all come from people who already knew me and used the website to see what I had available. The only strangers who have tried to buy my paintings all turned out to be scammers. None of them suceeded in ripping me off.

Colette Theriault said...

Great paintings John! I too love sparrows. Many people tend to overlook them due to their somewhat drab coloration but their song truly makes up for it! I think your owl painting is wonderful and wouldn't change a thing.