Flamingo Fluff, an original acrylic painting

Flamingo Fluff is an original acrylic painting on a 10 by 8 inch gallery wrap canvas.

This the first painting I completed in 2017!  I enjoy painting Flamingos as they are so interesting and have so many unique poses.

I chose this pose to paint because the bird was preening and the plumage was fluffed out, hence the source of the title of the art work.  This pallet is fairly easy for the bird.  The warm colors cover the full range from red light to red deep, some aliz. crimson and magenta, and earth tones to calm the brights.  I like to use Payne's gray as my black and some red and green to make my browns for the background.

I started with a light sketch of the major components of the image, but as the work proceeded paint covered the lines, and I was on my own with a reference photo.  My rendition of the bird came out pretty close to the physical attributes and turned out believable.  Flamingo Fluff has sold.

I hope you enjoy my art work and blog.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Artful play painting Colorful Hydrangeas

I painted this patch of Hydrangeas yesterday using the wet on wet technique with no real plan in mind.  Just wanted to relax and have fun. The back ground was already prepared so to speak as I had been painting it with leftover paint from prior paintings.  The background was created with lots of texture as I just spread the paint  on with the palette knife.  Leftover paint can always be salvaged for some use later.  Saved in little seal-able cups is one way, and painting edges of galley wrap canvases is another place, or practice painting strokes as I did in this painting.  The canvas board here was 14x11 inches by .25 inch thick.  You may think I am a crazy old painter as some colors may clash, but most make harmony.  I picked places on the background that seemed to already look like the shape and color of a flower, and from there let the painting evolve.

I hope you enjoy my art and your comments are always welcome.

God Bless You,

jimmie@jimmiesart.com

New Acrylic Painting: 'Roseate Spoonbill in the Marsh'

Roseate Spoonbill in the Marsh was finished today.  It is a 20x16 inch acrylic painting on canvas.

I spent more time on this one to build the highlights and the wonderful cast shadows creating some partial transparency effects in the wings.  Keeping focused on the bird's anatomy to get it right was the primary goalt and I changed the background to push the bird forward.  The marsh vegetation at the bottom foreground added a realistic touch to the painting.  Permanent Rose, magenta and aliz. crimson are the dominate colors in the spoonbill and earth tones with greens and blues for the rest.

If you are interested in this painting or prints email me.  Thanks for visiting!

God Bless You,
Jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Springtime Iris Oil Painting

Springtime Iris Oil Painting

18 by 14 inch stretched canvas with gallery wrapped painted edges.  ready to hang out of the box.

I have had three irises and a landscape painting in progress at the same time.  The irises were a challenge and the work is as close to realistic as I had time for.  The paintings are going to art shows this spring, but should you be interested, send me an email.

Many thanks for stopping in.

God Bless You,
Jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Purple Iris Oil Painting, a work in progress

I am working on several paintings this month and have reached the final stages on two of my iris's.  The purple iris is in the evaluation period before it can be called 'finished'.  I already see a couple of items to rework: the beard on the right and darken the shades in the background on the upper half to have more contrast between the white petals and the soft yellows.

I could have simplified the petals  but I couldn't resist the challenge of the twists and folds real iris's have.  The idea is to use a photo reference and paint it the way it looks best to you and omit the irrelevant components.  And use the colors more fitting to your tastes.

I am also considering putting in a few green blades in the background.  For now, we will let this one dry some more and work on the other paintings.  Thanks for visiting my blog.  I would enjoy your comments.

God Bless You,

Jimmie@jimmiesart.com

See all of my painting and prints for sale on thebartlettpair.com

Cody, An Original Oil Painting

I finished Cody this week after several settings of painting him in layers and tweaking the features to make him identifiable as the unique horse he was.  This commission is painted on a 20 by 16 inch canvas in oils.  I hope you like the background with a soft cosmic approach to push the image forward.  The colors were mixed to represent his summer coat and I tried to capture the likeness of his mane, blaze, and face realistically.

One eventful story about this horse:

The lady that owned and loved him entered a fund raiser barrel race.  She had never ridden in a barrel race, but Cody had earlier in his life.  She let him have his head and he ran the barrels without missing a lick!  All she could do was to hang on.  A horse with a strong heart.

I hope you enjoy the painting and the story of a very memorable horse.

May God Bless You,
Jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Note:  Please take a look at our www.thebartlettpair.com website.

Yellow Crowned Night Heron Painting

Yellow Crowned Night Heron painting is done in acrylics on a 14 x 14 inch gallery wrapped canvas.  This is one of those I finished (2009) but wasn't quite satisfied with it.  I have a spot high up in the studio where I hang paintings to be revisited.  Usually I get back to unfinished works within a few months.  Here it is five years later and I got out the ladder and put a little more paint on him.  I worked on the body feathers to build more contrast.  His head is the only place on the little guy that has color.  There is not much detail in the crayfish he was eating as he had already crunched it.  He was standing in carpet grass while fishing so I put some water behind him to make the painting a little more interesting.  Yellow Crowned Night Herons are plentiful here in the Texas coastal area.  They fish in swampy areas, ditches, ponds, and salt water marshes.  They make nests of sticks in trees and bushes.

I hope you enjoy the painting and the story.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

www.thebartlettpair

World Blog Hop! by Jimmie Bartlett artist in Van Vleck, Texas

I am excited about The World Blog Hop event and want to thank my good friend Vernita Bridges Hoyt  for the invitation to participate.  Vernita is a very accomplished  and well known artist in Spring, Texas.  Her art and blog has been an inspiration to me.  I encourage you to visit her great blog at http://TXsauce.blogspot.com.

Before I start answering the questions below, I want to introduce you to my beautiful wife Carolyn.  Without her support I would never have achieved my/our goals and become a full time artist.  She is the pretty one on the left.  Carolyn is a very talented artist and creates beautiful crafts from vintage jewelry and repurposed items.

1. What am I working on?

Currently I am working on two oil paintings of roses and planning projects for 2015.  Carolyn and I have ten shows scheduled for next year and plan to add a few more. We also create and maintain our websites and sell our art on Fine Art America.

The picture on the left is our booth at Angleton Market Days.  We also do The Peddler Shows in Rosenberg and Corpus Christi (Robstown), Texas.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Probably the biggest difference is that I like to work on a variety of art for the challenge and elimination of boredom. I can easily go from painting birdhouses to work on a portrait. We also produce a line of crafts for our shows.

We started our business (The Bartlett Pair) in 1993 making furniture and crafts. Our business evolved over time to become a diverse offering of arts and crafts. 

I paint things that catch my eye or from my imagination, and don't specialize in any particular area of painting; but, want to make each one of my works special. I enjoy it all.  Some works come from photo references, and others just the brush, paint and me. My goal is to paint as well as I can, as much as I can, everyday.

3. Why do I create what I do?

I love arts and crafts, the processes, and the creation. As a child growing up I had a natural tendency to draw and build things. Most of my working life was in the technical field, but my desire to create art was strong and with the gracious support of my wife Carolyn, painting full time became a reality. For me, painting is a gift from God, and the ultimate release of creativity.

4. How does my creating process work?

Oh boy!  This is a wide open question for me, but here goes.  My main source of inspiration comes from within.  What do I want to paint or build next?!  Most of my ideas comes from seeing beautiful things or interesting subjects from real life and taking pictures.

When I have a great photo I want to paint from, I use it for reference to sketch it on the canvas.  If it's fairly complex, I grid it off or use my projector to save time. Some of my paintings come from planning them in my head for long periods before starting.  I don't really watch TV at night - I am usually thinking about art.

 Before I call a painting finished, Carolyn critiques it for me.  She is unbiased and gives me the good, bad and ugly. LOL!  Also, I take a photo of it to review for improvement opportunities.  The camera is another set of eyes. 

Next on the World Blog Hop:

My friend, Dorothy Berry Lound will post on January 12th to continue the hop at  http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/dorothy-berry-lound.html?tab=blog . Dorothy is a great visionary artist, writer, and teacher fromUmbria, Perugia - Italy and I encourage you can see her extraordinary work on Fine Art America.com.

Thank you for stopping in and putting up with my ramblings.  I hope you enjoyed the post and will visit my art blog again.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com