Waterfall Macaw

new painting water fall mcaw

Life as it once was and still is. The majestic beauty of a waterfall and the colorful beauty of a Scarlet macaw still exists today. Painting inspired by the love of nature. This painting is 26 3/8" x 52 3/8" and sells for $300.00.

Virgin Mary

Merry Christmas Mary. This is another commissioned work for Mr. Olamendi's Restaurant. It is painted with almost 100% glitter paint, which is fabric paint from Duncan Enterprises and it is 34" x 46" on Fredrix canvas. Inspired by a string art that Mr. Olamendi has in his restaurant.

Gifts

What do you think about gifts? Are they given or received? Did you find them or did you always have them? Where do your gifts begin or end? Do you have the gift of gab or were you gifted with beauty or a brush stroke or song? Did you come easy to it or did God drag you kicking and screaming to find it? Or, were you to ever strive to be where you should be? Your heart was fulfilled to a point of bliss or the wonder of peace has brought you happiness. Are they combined with your dreams – what you wanted in your life? Maybe you’re young and your future is all yours to find and the gifts you have are in the making. But at this Christmas time, giving gifts is one thing in and of itself. Giving of one self is like God giving His Gift to us. With His Love like our love giving to another, it’s the giving of love. Sometimes, it is our gifts to each other that will make each of our lives as neighbors and family fulfilled with the joy of Life and Love of God that He blesses us with. Throughout our lives we are filled with the bombardment of man’s bad choices of free will, my self included. Never leaving my faith in God or finding my way forward, at times, seems virtually impossible to do.

Prayer, faith, and, forgiveness are important in my life. At times, I have had trouble forgiving myself for my imperfections. I have been beating my self up and not feeling worthy of love and forgiveness. It was prayer that pulled me through. It is the time we should pray the hardest and the longest.

We should set ourselves free from the anguish so God can remove our imperfections. It allows His Love to shine through us creating a gateway to our gifts with no roadblocks ahead of us. We all have these abilities to seek the things of God to strive for the life in which we search for but we let mans world and our freedom of choices prevent us from seeing Gods will.

I am thankful my blessings and the ability to share them with others. It is what Christmas is to my life. May you find the Love of God and the gifts given to you to share with in your own lives. Merry Christmas!

A day of inspiration

What sometimes amazes me is the amazement that Tina, our dog, doesn’t go out of our motor home. She was trained not to leave. The people that go by constantly comment on that fact and are amazed by it. A training manual states that dogs have the intelligence of a four year old. And they can count to four – at least some breeds. We have trained her not only to stay in, but to come when called. But at times she is distracted by birds, dogs, etc. and wants to point or play. One time she was on the beach one early morning and she saw a couple of sandpipers. I could not see them. She was slowly creeping and pointing. I looked at her and said you crazy mutt, you are pointing at rocks! Soon the birds I did not see took off and so did Tina. Unfortunately, she was half way to San Clemente. No matter what I tried, no commands could curtail her enthusiasm to chase those birds. As they stayed close to the sand near the waves, so did Tina. They disappeared into the sunrise over each dune. She kept going until I could not see anymore. So, I being out for a short walk, started walking south, figuring I would catch up to her just before the border. Just then, I caught a glimpse of our motor home heading in the same direction. My wife was attempting to cut her off at the pass but ran out of park and had to stop. She headed out for her yelling for Tina to come. Five minutes later, here comes Tina. Tongue hanging, tuckered and tired, Tina walked slowly to the motor home. Jennifer was yelling Truck! Truck! Tina had been trained to go inside the motor home with that command. I wanted to kill Tina at first, but I knew it was my fault for not having her on the leash. I let her off the leash so she could run around and so she did. Tina was so happy that day. We would love to have the run around like that every day, after all, she is a bird dog. We have found an unconfined space where she can run. Now, dogs walk by on leashes and Tina cries. Is it because she feels so bad for those dogs and wants to tell them where to run?

Do it now! Just do it. You can’t sell what you don’t paint. What happened to painting every day? Your Job - Are you a quitter? Get shirts from second hand stores. Do your painting outside in public. Show your shirts at the same time take the computer to show other shirts print and frame. Provide pictures of shirts pictures for walls to take with signed copies. Make money on art already done. If you are an artist, why don’t you act like one! You are willing to go out in bone chilling cold and stand outside praying for work at hard labor when God’s given you a gift of artistic freedom and you don’t do anything about it! You just sit there doing nothing!! Just nothing! God must be really happy about that. Hoowah. Wasting the talent He gave you. What a waste! If you had not given up you would already have the money you are seeking. Hollis and everyone always ask if you are painting. Your answer is always no. No wonder they think you are a loser. They wonder why you are wasting your talent. And they wish they had that ability. So why are you doing nothing? It just doesn’t make sense, does it? So, you better get off your butt or maybe you should stay on it and just do it. You are on it anyway so what is your problem? Get to it!!!!

Art is as interesting as the artist themselves. Their life experiences guide their type, style, medium, subject matter etc. Some love to paint perfection, some abstract. Some of the supposedly greats of their day seem to instill the unforeseen emotional reality of the human condition capturing the wonder of possibilities of canvases. In their day spending months or years on a project was not a problem. Life’s simplicity made time a non issue of the time involved on a project. In this day and time, time is money. Unfortunately, the time it takes to create a work that is affordable to the vast majority of people. Meaning the time spent verses price the more time spent the better the perfection of the piece. Good things take time. It converts to I LOVE THAT! And then they walk away. I recently had a girl walk by the motor home with 4 dogs looking at my paintings on the side she passed by then after walking about thirty feet she stopped and turned around to come back and asked me if I would take six dollars for that bird. I asked which bird. She pointed at a giant blue heron standing in the water reflecting its beauty on the ripples at the days dawning patiently waiting for the morning’s bountiful schools of bait fish. Not hesitating, I said, “sure.” I came out of the home on wheels and pulled the Velcro-ed art off the side as she said I love birds. A smile came upon her face as she walked away staring at it as she left and continued to stare at it for some time. The fifteen hours I spent painting the bird I had called PATIENCE some months earlier was time well spent. Upon reflection of that day, I’m reminded of a friend who has spent a lifetime perfecting his art. After a devastating accident being hit on his bicycle by a car and years of recovery, he is plagued by his energies. He plays for a small portion of the bar and tips. It’s a far cry from what once he came. The time spent learning his craft and becoming very successful at it is what we strive for. Fortunately for us, his love for his craft, the love of beautiful music his guitar makes, overrides his physical limitations. The one thing that we can all depend on is that the pieces of the puzzle not yet reveled to us always seem to have a purpose. For him, the love of music is our gift. The time spent isn’t an issue, which we are all grateful for.

Poetry by Craig

I am a weakling and I'm weeping
I'm lost, wondering what the cost
I'm to pay the price it seems like ice
I'm cold and wonder Why the thunder
I'm God's servant today so I'll have to pay
I'm in His Hands I have no bands
Thy Will be done even if be hung
His Plan we'll see at the end He'll be.

by Craig Hunter

God's Beauty

I just finished the fourth in a series of eight commissioned works for Mr. Olamendi. He said he wanted a reef with fish and this is what I created.
While it was drying outiside on the beach, I picked up another commissioned work from Justin of Rancho Cucamonga. He likes my Therapy painting. Therapy is my political statement. It is about the frustration I feel about the State of the Union. Its going on his fireplace mantel and to personalize it for him, he's going to send me a list of his likes and dislikes and hobbies.
After discussing the particulars, he said. "Let's do it." Its scheduled for next week, so if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy another roll of canvas and more tubes of Duncan paint. I am amazed at the all the recent events that have transpired. I know it is God's grace and it is a gift from God. Although I am amazed by his blessings, sometimes I don't feel worthy of His Grace. I know He has a plan for me. I am just along for the ride and Oh what a ride! Thank you Lord. Peace OUT>

Subject Matter

You should have a sky and an ocean depending on the subject matter you pick. It determines your colors and what you are going to paint. I don't know if you are doing sunsets, silhouettes, daytime, or sunrises. Silhouettes are good for sunsets. silhouettes of palm trees, people, boats, etc. but lets assume you did a daytime ocean and sky and you are going to paint a flying marlin. The subject matter will differ, your choice of fish, in this case we are using a marlin. Find a picture of a marlin in a magazine of any sort, it could be completely out of the water or half out of the water.

Imagine your marlin picture in a silhouette. In your mind place that silhouette on the ocean or halfway near the center of the canvas. In seeing the outline of the marlin, you can see how large you want it. You will begin with a white silhouette of your fish. Let it dry. Once you have the white silhouette of your fish, you can easily blend colors on a palette or paint solid colors on the white silhouette. Use a spatula or brush to blend them. Just doing the basic color structure of the fish. Detail work on the fish is last. Once you have the blended colors that completely fill the white silhouette, and it's completely dry. You can now start detailing the fish. Usually start at the gill fins and the anal fins and the fins on the bottom of the fish. Then find out where the eye is placed. Pay attention to the detail. On doing the fish's eye, start out with the outer ring let dry. Do the inner color and then usually black is in the center. Let each color dry before you do the next. The last thing done to the eye is a tear drop spec of white on the upper side of the eye.

Your dorsal fins and tail fins usually have different colors, if you have not filled in those colors yet do that. Let dry. Then do the bone ribs on them. A good place to find out the aesthetics of the fish is the Pacific Sportfishing books with illustrations to show you what the fishes look like. The fish colors in the books vary as do the artists. When doing the rib bones in the fins pay attention to the bone colors, sometimes they are none existent, I use iridescent white mist for those bones. Other times the colors of the bone fade from dark to light. They get lighter as they go away from the head.

You now have a fish flying or coming out of the water. in either case, fish that do this have water splash that rises with the fish. This is the final step. It needs to be tied in with the water. Use iridescent white mist for the splashes. And you can use glittering blues and silver in independent dots and a tiny bit of seafoam green. Where the fish comes out of the water use a little white, if any. It is easy to ruin with too much white. Tying in the splash to your ocean with extending foam ripples using iridescent white mist. To see an example of what you are going to create go the slide show. You can click on the pictures of my flying bill fish. These pictures explain the tutorial in color detail.

You can add caught fish with a boat somewhere near the horizon, putting feathers in the fish's mouth and a fishing line using silver glitter. Now you can add seagulls or anything that would fit on your picture. If you have created a wave on the bottom with sand, you can put dry grass in the foreground like my Sunrise Silhouette with palm trees. The palm trees were painted first and the dry grass second. Some of my ideas come from three or four magazines. I see a fish I like in one, a boat in another, a sunset in yet another compiling and using three or four pictures to create one. Thus, making it an original. If you have any questions feel free to ask by blogging me.

Hooray Hooray

Hooray Hooray for today! I just sold another original of an ocean wave and got commissioned to do three original pieces of art. Does not seem much to some people, probably a drop in the bucket for others, but to me coming from my number one collector, it means a lot. He mentioned that he has more in store for me after I finish these three. Hooray! Hooray oh what a day.

When you're painting the random patterns of nature it is sometimes difficult0, r . Your brain says 123, 123, 123. It should be saying 436, 710, or 924. There are no two trees with the same branches. They are all random in every way imaginable. Keep this in mind when you paint, even all the are in fish books are similar. The same fish in different books are all different. There is no right or wring way to paint things of nature like waves, clouds, or rocks. There is only technique to learn how to create shadows, textures, or color mixing. A great way to learn this is to take a black and white photo class. The reason being is that it takes colors and turns them into shades of gray from solid white to solid black. You will be amazed by what a yellow filter does to the gray spectrum. Your brain will show you all the colors of the rainbow in you b/w photos. You will then see things differently when you paint in colors. We migh lose you to photography, but the instant fix of a photo is just that. I can't compete with that. I can sit all day photographing waves, and never find what I want but I can picture it in my head and paint it. Thus my giant blue heron came from a photo a friend gave me. The picture had in it a bicycle, rails, gas pumping dock, and a bait dock. None of which made it in the painting but the close up of the bird was perfect to use so I did. I have to tell you that I watched two ladies painting and discussing their experience. One of them went to a seminar to learn about her inadequate art. The artist told her that her colors were too vibrant and to paint softer. She was devastated and could not believe what she heard from him. Artist struggle with what other people want to buy. I call it whoring myself out to what I think will sell. I get a lot of people seeing my art every day. They all like different pieces for different reasons. It's as individual as the artisan who painted them. Be true to yourself, your art will be true to you.

Lets paint

Depending on the sky you pick - morning daytime night time depicts what colors you will use. the time of day, brightness of day same with the ocean - depicts colors you will use. For instance, a sunset sky will be yellows purples blues maroon orange and red, your basic sunset colors. Next the ocean starting at the tape working your way down which is getting closer. Colors next to the tape will be deep dark blue like navy. Spreading lighter blues towards the bottom changing to dark greens turquoise, seafoam greens right where waves might end up. If you plan on putting in sand and waves crashing on the sand the last colors on the bottom of the painting will be adobe, shiny tea, snow cap white, and iridescent gold and shiny winter white. Layering these colors from the tape down using your spatula going side to side mixing all the colors together. Trying to prevent from making indentation with the card. Let dry. Do the sky with the same process mixing blues the lightest on the bottom of the sky and the darkest on the top of the sky. If you want wispy clouds, as you are mixing the sky drop in a couple of white or gray keep mixing from side to side. Voila! You now have a base. Completed step number one let dry. You have a horizon, a sky, and an ocean on which you can do most anything.

Helpful hints to get you started:
1. Wash fabric with no softener.
2. Stretch shirt on a board being able to rub fingers vigorously across the fabric without wrinkles.
3. Unwrap bottles and turn upside down in a cardboard box with holes in it.
4. Take 2" wide plastic tape across the shirt where you want the horizon.
5. Paint with big bottles use a card like a spatula to spread the paint across the shirt.
6. Let dry.
7. Put the tape on the sky. Paint the ocean side of the shirt.
8. Peel tape off immediately after painting ocean.
9. Stay tuned for the next blog. Any questions or difficulty, blog me.

Next fill in your subject matter base colors saving the details for last. Adding all you backgrounds and foregrounds basic colors before you create the final details. Stopping at each step for complete dry time. the only place to do fixing is at the basic colors step going back after the fill in is impossible. If you want to find out more, drop me a line and we will continue this class with anyone interested in painting with tulip paint. PS if you are a novice starting out go the thrift store to get t shirts inexpensive as well is the paint

This newly painted original on Fredrix canvas is 66x18. This painting can be purchased directly from me. Call me at 714-785-6463. or email me at bubblepacific@yahoo.com

You know at times you think you are a failure as an artist because you don't sell anything. But art appreciated by an individual, liking what you do and the things you create is a beautiful thing. On a rare occasion you actually sell something like the eagle pulling a bass out of the water. it is 12 x 14 with about 12 - 13 hours worth of paint time. I would have requested $75, putting me at minimum wage. It puts me at about $2 an hour when I sold it for $30. Thus what some people consider to be a starving artist. It s supposed to be all about the art and not the money but unfortunately to make a living at it you have to sell something. Hearing the positive feedback I hear at Doheny State Park is a good thing. It inspires me to keep going, to not give up and to not quit. Down here they have art shows all the time. Yet, I don't have the money to show in the artshows- the business license, the resale license, the permits - whatever it takes. I don't have enough inventory yet to make a show. They say be prepared when opportunity knocks - thats what I can do.