Here’s what I’ve been up to lately.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024 - Despite several rainy days, I’ve managed to get some outdoor painting done this month as part of Kansas City’s “Stems Plein Air Paint 2024” event during the month of May.
Field and Tree West of Olathe, Kansas - May 2, 2024 - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Rotting Hay Bales and Derelict Farm Equipment, Overland Park, Kansas - May 10, 2024 - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Piggyback Freight Cars Passing West of Shawnee, Kansas - May 11, 2024 - oil stick on wood panel, 18” x 24”
Mill Creek and the Johnson County Landfill, Shawnee, Kansas - May 11, 2024 - watercolor, 11” x 14”
Sunday, April 28, 2024 - I’m grateful to Rick Truman, manager of the Folly Theater in Kansas City, for inviting me to be an on-site artist for concerts and other events at the theater. Last night’s solo performance by Alex Cuba was sublime!
Alex Cuba at the Folly Theater - April 27, 2024 - watercolor and pencil, 9” x 12”
Friday, April 19, 2024 - I’m proud to have my artwork serve as the cover for a new 4-song EP by one of my favorite songwriters, Scott Hrabko. Scott is an inspiration to me as a creative artist; he works hard at a craft he loves, and the results are sublime. Click on the link below this picture and enjoy yourself some songs you can get lost in.
(By the way, I didn’t just do the album art. I played tomato cans, spatulas, water bowls and other things on a couple of tracks. I can say with confidence that I’m the top-call session guy for tomato cans in Kansas City.)
Friday, April 5, 2024 - This is from a short trip back to the Delta flatlands of northeast Louisiana. Much of the place hasn’t changed since I was a kid.
Outside Oak Grove, Louisiana - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Friday, March 22, 2024 - I was in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during the past week and managed to get a couple of plein air sketches in.
Morning Light and Clouds across Goose Creek Valley - watercolor - 9” x 12”
Looking East from a High Meadow on the Appalachian Trail, Linden, Virginia - watercolor and gouache - 9” x 12”
Sunday, March 10, 2024 - Once again, I’m mining images from my dad’s documentation of life in small-town Louisiana in the 1960s. I don’t think there was a truck wreck or house fire that escaped his camera.
I continue to think about him, more than two decades after his death. There is so much of him and his way of thinking that persists in me. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to these images, sitting up late at night rendering them, like a monk transcribing texts. It feels meditative and connecting. I don’t fully understand why I need this, but it gives me some peace.
Most recently, I’ve been working with a very dark (8B) water-soluble pencil. It can do everything: make heavy marks or soft washes, a real marvel of modern technology. I’m glad somebody’s making these things.
Wreck at Pellets Mill (Walter Polk’s Load of Corn), 1968 - water-soluble graphite on polypropylene film - 9” x 12”
House Fire, 1968 - water-soluble graphite on drawing paper - 9” x 12”
Friday, February 23, 2024 - Mysterious visitors to the front door continue to appear, although the earliest sighting of this character had a distinctly familiar look. (See pencil drawing below.)
Doorbell Camera #5 (Cosmos Calling) - watercolor and gouache, 9” x 12”
Portrait of the Artist in an Unguarded Moment- water-soluble graphite on polypropylene film, 9” x 12”. So that’s what I look like….
Study for “Cosmos Calling” - watercolor crayons on polypropylene film, 9” x 12”. This is a fun stage of creation, a quick and rough transition from the original image to what it would eventually become.
Saturday, February 10, 2024 - The fine folks at Urban Prairie Coffee (5606 Johnson Drive in Mission, Kansas) loaned me one of their walls to display thirteen recent paintings, including some of the big oil-stick pieces from the past year. Stop in, have a cup and enjoy the sights!
Monday, January 15, 2024 - Got word today that my watercolor painting, "Mer Rouge Tavern, 1968" has been accepted in the 61st Annual Juried Competition at the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, Louisiana. It will be one of 90 works displayed at the museum from February 22 - May 4, 2024. I was born in Monroe, so I'm really proud to have a work in this show. https://www.masurmuseum.org/events/
Mer Rouge Tavern, 1968 - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Sunday, January 7, 2024 - This is a bigger, looser version of the picture from last week. After months of limiting myself to small and increasingly tight watercolors, I’m ready to make some more big, messy paintings. I dashed this one out in an afternoon and certainly succeeded on the “messy” part. I can already see several points that need to be revisited and improved, but it’s off to a more or less good start.
Highway Sentinel (in progress) - oil stick on hollow-core door panel, 32” x 36”
Sunday, December 31, 2023 - A couple of weekends ago, I was in the Missouri River bottoms north of Kansas City when I saw the striking image of a red-tailed hawk sitting on a sign near the entrance to a highway. I pulled over and took a quick photo with the hope of turning the scene into a painting.
After making a few rough sketches, I decided the picture would be more impactful if I moved the viewpoint to the opposite side of the road and slightly elevated, making the hawk more present and the curve of the highway more dramatic. It took some figuring, but I think I wound up with a better picture.
For the graphite study, I used an 8b (dark) water-soluble pencil on a sheet of polypropylene film. This made for a surface that could be heavily worked, erased and lifted with water, giving lots of flexibility in arranging and re-arranging the picture. (It was fun, too.) For the painting, I tried out a board primed with a watercolor ground, instead of my usual paper. This gave similar flexibility—but this flexibility caused me to overwork the image, and get hung up on perfecting details. With paper, you can’t easily fix things, and you have to commit to your action. That’s usually a good thing.
Highway Sentinel - watercolor on gessoed board, 11” x 14”
Highway Sentinel - water-soluble graphite on polypropylene film, 9” x 12”
Source photo of a hawk on a highway sign near Farley, Missouri, seen through the windshield of my car.
Friday, December 1, 2023 - For most of my life, I’ve been passing by an old abandoned store that is pretty much all that exists of Gravesville, Arkansas. (I can even remember, dimly, when it was an actual store open for business. I don’t remember when it was painted pink.) It has long been a sign that I’m nearing my destination after a day’s drive to visit family down home. This last trip, however, it just sort of spoke up and said, “paint me”.
Abandoned Store at Gravesville Cutoff Road - watercolor, gouache and chalk pencil, 11” x 14”
Saturday, November 25, 2023 - Just a slob, like one of us.
What Theseus Found - watercolor and gouache, 12” x 9” (sold)
Saturday, November 18, 2023 - Taking another shot at capturing the look of autumn on the Missouri River. This time, the weather was more cooperative.
The Missouri at Berkley Riverfront - watercolor and gouache, 11” x 14” (sold)
Sunday, November 12, 2023 - It was sunny, calm and relatively warm in Kansas City today, so I took the opportunity to catch a scene in the industrial West Bottoms. Unlike last week, the humidity was low and paint was drying fast.
9th & Mulberry, KCMO - watercolor and chalk pencil, 11” x 14”
Saturday, November 4, 2023 - I got a little free time in downtown Kansas City to set up the watercolors and do some plein air painting. The conditions were not great; it was chilly and humid. By the time I made it down to the Missouri River overlook, rain had started to fall. I found a semi-sheltered place under a flight of stairs and set to work.
Of all the paint media, watercolor is the most sensitive to variations in temperature and humidity, and this was certainly playing out in my attempt to capture this particular scene. The paints were drying in a most painfully slow manner. By the time the rain really started falling hard, I had to pack up and go or lose the painting completely to the deluge. I folded the cover of the paper pad over my work and hoped for the best as I trekked to my car. Unfortunately, large portions of the painting that were still wet had been smudged out on the walk. The work done on the scene was largely ruined. But, once safe and dry at home, I could hopefully rely on my memory of the scene to get the feeling of a cold autumn day on the river.
It’s not my favorite way to work. I like catching everything onsite, with no do-overs or “fixes”. But sometimes you just have to do a little repair work.
Rainy Day on the Missouri - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Rainy Day on the Missouri (before repairs) - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Monday, October 30, 2023 - A return to Dad’s photographs, immersing myself in the past in an attempt to figure out I-don’t-know-what.
Surveying the Fields, 1954 - watercolor and chalk pencil, 9” x 12”
Monday, October 16, 2023 - I got the notion to do a more fully realized version of an image from an old sketchbook from about 15 years ago. I’ve done two versions of it and I’m not sure if either of them hit the mark (or if there is even a mark there to be hit). In version one, the protagonist wound up looking too much like a young dude-bro. (I don’t know why I put that cap on him.) Not what I wanted…I wanted someone more world-weary, a guy who’s been running for a long time, in clothes he never would have chosen when he was younger. That’s what I was trying for in version two.
Just Another Guy Running From His Heart (Version 2) - watercolor and gouache, 9” x 12”
Just Another Guy Running From His Heart (Version 1) - watercolor and gouache, 9” x 12”
Here’s the original sketchbook page from 2008 or so. I kept the goofy caption because this is a heart whose patience is worn out. It’s getting angry with its owner.
Sunday, October 15, 2023 - There is something wonderful about sitting alone with a cup of coffee and a notebook in a room where individuals and small groups of people sit at tables, conversing, studying or idly looking out the window. We are strangers to each other, yet there is a comfortable link between us, an unwritten contract to sit amongst each other in peace.
Thursday, October 12, 2023 - Scenes from “Waiting for a Prescription at Costco in Lenexa, Kansas”. Soon to be a major motion picture.
Thursday, October 5, 2023 - The wild ones never went away.
Doorbell Camera #4 (Fugitives) - watercolor and acrylic, 9” x 12”
Sunday, October 1, 2023 - The visitors keep coming.
Doorbell Camera #3 (Hey, It’s Me) - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Wednesday, September 27, 2023 - After the tree fell on our house this summer, it seemed everyone was ringing our doorbell.
Doorbell Camera #2 (Wolves at the Door) - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Monday, September 19, 2023 - Another day, another labyrinth.
Doorbell Camera #1 (American Maze) - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Friday, September 15, 2023 - Some objects quietly but insistently demand their beauty be recorded.
A Banana of a Certain Age - watercolor and chalk, 9” x 12”
Friday, September 8, 2023 - Modern-day sightings of the Minotaur continue.
Truman Avenue Labyrinth (sold) - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Sunday, August 27, 2023 - I’ve long been intrigued by some neglected ruins near my home (okay, I’m intrigued by all neglected ruins). They’re a collection of sandstone outcrops left over from a quarrying operation, and they have an almost sentinel-like presence in the midst of a tangle of roads and commercial strips next to I-35. I thought they would be good subject matter for exercising my watercolor muscle on a summer afternoon.
As I was finishing up my second sketch, a fellow who had been flying a drone nearby came down the hill to talk. He told me that, about 50 years earlier, the site had held a small municipal swimming pool for Roeland Park, Kansas. I’ll have to go back and look for traces.
Abandoned Rock Quarry (View Through the Gap) - watercolor and pencil, 9” x 12”
Abandoned Rock Quarry (Overgrown Outcrop) - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Monday, August 21, 2023 – Ever since a big storm passed through Kansas City last month and sent a tree through my roof, I haven’t been making much art. But now that my wife and I are settled in a rented house nearby (and will be for six months or more as our insurance provider reluctantly pays for repairs), I’ve begun again. I’ve got a little desk under a lamp, where I can work on small-format watercolors—fortunately, it’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing.
A few years ago, I made several pictures featuring the Minotaur of Greek myth. I had an idea, and apparently I’m not alone in this, that the Minotaur might not have been the monster depicted in legend. Maybe he was just a scary-looking fellow who became the fall guy for a king who needed a villain to deflect attention from his own corruption. Maybe it was easier to accuse this bull-headed man of horrible crimes and put him in an inescapable prison than it was to deal with his differences. I mean, did he really eat those young people who were sacrificed to him? Bulls are vegetarians, lacking the teeth necessary to eat any kind of meat!
Naah, I’m pretty sure the Minotaur was just a guy who wanted to be free and left alone. And it was with this thought in mind I pictured him in the modern labyrinth of present-day America, trying to be free (or giving up, as seen here). He’s been showing up in my imagination again, and in my art.
Resigned - 2009 - acrylic on masonite, 36” x 24”
He Persists - 2023 - watercolor, 9” x 12” (sold)
The Minotaur Takes a Midnight Whiz in the Suburbs - 2023 - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Friday, June 30, 2023 - Two new oil stick paintings this week.
State Route Z, near Adrian, Missouri - oil stick on hollow-core door panel, 24” x 36”
Summer Solstice Twilight - oil stick on hollow-core door panel, 32” x 32” (sold)
Friday, June 18, 2023 - A new one, in a couple of different media.
Lake Lucerne - oil stick on hollow-core door panel, 24” x 36”
Lake Lucerne - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Saturday, May 13, 2023 - In 1954, when my father was 22 years old, he bought a 35mm camera and began documenting his life with color slides. He continued his practice of photography right up until he died in 2000. I’ve been viewing and scanning slides from some of those early days and using them as subject matter for big, messy paintings.
Charlie Staffa on the Mississippi at Baton Rouge - oil stick on hollow-core door panel, 32” x 42”
A detail view. I love the immediacy of oil sticks.
This is how the sausage is made…it ain’t pretty.
Thursday, May 11, 2023 - Seeking more abstraction and less control with the help of the messiest art materials I’ve ever used. When I was a finger-painting five-year-old, I had a real sense of decisive action when making pictures. Oil sticks are helping me get some of that back.
Rice Harvest, 1955 - oil stick on hollow-core door panel, 24” x 30”
Rice Harvest, 1955 (study) - oil stick on mat board, 9” x 12”
What was I thinking, painting a John Deere combine blue?
On Bayou Bartholomew - oil stick on hollow-core door panel, 24” x 32”
I was looking to lose control and, sure enough, control was lost. This one will cool for a few days before I decide if it needs further finishing. I’m thinking it does.
Thursday, April 27, 2023 - I’ve been graciously invited to join a group called “Muse and Method”. These are friends, most of whom are musicians, and the purpose of the group is to encourage creativity by issuing themes and deadlines for making new work. The current theme is “Night Moves”, and I’ve taken the challenge to flesh out a short story idea from years ago. You can listen to that story, if you have a few minutes, here. The image on the right is from the long-ago sketchbook where the idea for this story, “A Man Went Running in the Night”, was first written down.
Monday, February 21, 2023 - Winter scenes from Loose Park, a place I often return to.
Late Afternoon Winter Sun, Loose Park - oil stick on hollow-core door panel, 24” x 32”
Wax crayon sketch for “Late Afternoon Winter Sun, Loose Park".
Late Afternoon Winter Sun, Loose Park (first version) - oil stick on wood panel, 12” x 16”
Trees and Lawn, Loose Park - oil stick on wood panel, 12” x 16”, February 12, 2023 - painted onsite
Ol’ Stretch now has a trailer capable of accommodating a full-size field easel.
Thursday, February 8, 2023 - After spending most of January framing an art show, I’m getting my hands dirty with painting again.
View from the Mississippi River Levee, Lake Providence, Louisiana - oil stick on wood panel, 16” x 24”
Close-ups reveal forensic evidence of authorship.
Study for “View from the Mississippi River Levee, Lake Providence, Louisiana” - oil stick on canvas board, 12” x 16”, February 5, 2023
Friday, February 3, 2023 - Out and About: Plein Air Paintings by Hank Tilbury will be on view at The Pairing Crossroads Wine & Grocer throughout the month of February. Our opening reception is from 6:00-9:00pm on Friday, February 3. Come on down to 1615 Oak Street in the Crossroads Arts District of Kansas City, Missouri during First Friday to enjoy some artworks and some fine wines.
A big thanks to Mat “Slimm” Adkins, owner of The Pairing, for offering his space for the show and for excellent direction in hanging the artwork!
Wednesday, January 4, 2023 - Hollow-core doors with a lauan veneer surface are one of my favorite painting supports. I find them used, but in good shape, at the Habit for Humanity ReStore. Then I bring them home and cut them to a desired size, prime the surface with clear gesso, and wind up with a surface ready for oils, acrylics or wax-based paints.
Abandoned Store, Lake Providence, Louisiana - oil stick on hollow-core door panel, 24” x 36”
Thursday, December 15, 2022 - Minimalismmmmmm.
East Arkansas Bottomland in Winter - oil stick on wood panel, 16” x 20”
Thursday, December 8, 2022 - I continue to explore and enjoy working with oil sticks. This is a reinterpretation of a watercolor from earlier this year, which itself is a reinterpretation of a photograph my dad took over a half century ago.
Claude Ingram, 1968 - oil stick on canvas board 12” x 16”
Claude Ingram, 1968 - photo by Henry Tilbury, Jr. This was taken with a little Minox spy camera Dad carried around in his pocket.
Monday, December 5, 2022 - As I look through and reinterpret the photos my father took in the late 1960s, I notice many of the images are of wrecks or fires. Perhaps Dad was the Weegee of Mer Rouge, Louisiana, on the scene to record his town’s traumas.
Wrecked Pickup Truck, 1968 - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Monday, November 28, 2022 - Like much of the Ozarks, the rural areas of Cleburne County, Arkansas consist largely of second-growth hardwood forest, pine tree farms and clear-cut land, usually all set right next to each other. I made a field sketch of one such hillside when I was there last month. Returning home, I wanted to take this image and paint it in rough fashion on a surface made from the product of those tree farms: namely, a 32” x 48” sheet of scrap pine plywood.
The initial sketch (oil on wood panel, 16” x 20”) was done on site, 10/27/22. I wasn’t happy with the way the hardwood grove on the left side of the mountain turned out.
Initial layers of the larger version (oil on plywood, 32” x 48”), November 7 - it’s a good start, but the area on the left side of the mountain, the hardwoods, needs detail and definition. Or so I thought….
Large version in progress, November 9 - I did a dark underpainting on the left side of the mountain, then brushed the sunlit trees over over this. But adding this detail and others makes it feel like the thing has lost energy and immediacy.
Further (finished?) work on the large version, November 27 - I worked the painting over with a layer of oil stick, my new favorite tool. After applying the oil stick, I blended colors together with gloved fingers.
Wednesday, November 24, 2022 - Further painting with oil sticks. I really like working with these things.
Fallow Field in October, Mer Rouge, Louisiana - oil stick on wood panel, 16” x 20” - November 16, 2022
Detail of “Fallow Field”
Abandoned House at Horseshoe Lake - oil stick on wood panel, 16” x 20” - November 23, 2022
At an entrance to the abandoned house in the painting above, I found this empty pair of boots next to another artist’s work depicting Jesus’ second coming and the gathering up of his followers, both living and dead. I deduced that the boots must have belonged to the artist, who made an onsite rendition of The Rapture as it was in progress and before he, himself, was lifted up into Heaven.
I also came to the sobering conclusion that I (and you, if you’re reading this) had better buck up for The Tribulation. I hear it’s gonna be a doozy.
Saturday, November 12, 2022 - I’m working on some images from last month’s trip to my old home places in Arkansas and Louisiana. The image below is an experiment in working with oil sticks rather than tube oil paints. Drawing is an important part of what I do, and I’ve wanted to bring some of the energy of direct mark-making into my painting. I’m encouraged by the results I get just starting out with black and white.
Abandoned Store, Lake Providence, Louisiana - oil stick on wood panel, 16” x 20”
Wednesday, November 2, 2022 - Last week, I took a trip with my brother to the little farming community of Mer Rouge in northeast Louisiana, where our family got its start. We moved away when I was nine years old and visited regularly while my grandparents were alive but, except for a couple of funerals, I hadn’t been there in nearly 30 years.
Even despite distance and time, it’s hard to shake the influence of the place where you first come to know the world. Through all the places I’ve lived and all the changes I’ve seen, I have looked at life through a lens that was formed in a quiet, slow-paced backwater mired in old times, old customs and sharp divides of race and class. Mer Rouge crosses my thoughts every day, and has been the focus of much of my recent work. I’d been wanting to go back and see what had changed and what hadn’t, and this turned out to be a richly memorable visit.
Delta Sunset, Bonita, Louisiana - oil on wood panel, 16” x 20”
45-minute sketch, October 29
Off Nip Eckles Road, Mer Rouge, Louisiana - oil on wood panel, 20” x 16”
60-minute sketch, October 30
Dad built the first house on what used to be a dirt road here in 1963. The place has changed; so have we.
Hard at it. (Photo by Van Tilbury)
I road-tested my homemade rack (PVC pipe and foam insulation) for transporting wet oil paintings. It worked pretty well!
Friday, October 28, 2022 - I’m proud to announce the release today of “The Wishful Thinkers’ Hall of Fame”, a new album by The Matchsellers, one of the most creative bands working in bluegrass music today. My painting of the same name not only serves as the cover art, it was a sort of catalyst for Andrew Morris’ fertile imagination in the songwriting and concept of the album. It’s an honor to be associated with these folks. Listen to the album and download a copy here!
The Wishful Thinkers’ Hall of Fame - watercolor, 18” x 18” (sold)
Wednesday, October 26, 2022 - I'm visiting family back home in Arkansas; this is a scene from the woods between my old neighborhood and the lake, where I whiled away much of my youth.
Every time I paint outdoors with oils, it feels like I've never held a brush in my life. It’s as though I'm Sasquatch with a palette, trying to make blobs of color resemble a scene in front of me. I guess that can be both good and bad, and it may be that way for everybody. Yesterday, I heard the writer Yiyun Li quoted saying, "I feel the most ridiculous thing is certainty."
Brush Pile and Cedar Woods at Sandy Beach - oil on wood panel, 16” x 20”
90-minute sketch, October 24
Afternoon Shadows and Cedars, Sandy Beach - oil on wood panel, 20” x 16”
90-minute sketch, October 26
Saturday, October 15, 2022 - I spent a perfect Autumn afternoon cycling and painting along the Kansas River Levee in Lawrence.
East of Lawrence, Kansas - watercolor, 9” x 12” - 45-minute sketch
Saturday, October 1, 2022 - Again, I’m visiting old images from my father’s photos of Louisiana cotton country in the 1960s and interpreting them in watercolor. At the end of October, I’ll be traveling to the little town of Mer Rouge, where I spent my first ten years, just to see what it’s like today and to gather material for more paintings and sound recordings. It seems the place won’t leave me alone.
Cropduster, 1968 - watercolor, 9” x 12”
An accompanying guitar piece can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/hanklebury/cropduster
Monday, September 19, 2022 - During a vacation trip to my beloved old Michigan stomping ground, I managed to get some watercolor sketches of Old Mission Peninsula from the west side of Grand Traverse Bay, where my wife and I were staying. If there hadn’t so many places to go and fun things to do, I would’ve sat by the water and recorded the scene every hour—and each scene would reflect the ever-changing light and atmosphere of Lake Michigan.
7:00 AM, just before the sun appeared—the air was damp and cool, causing the wet paint to sit on the paper a long time and disperse in unpredictable ways.
11:00 AM—High wind and choppy waves, bright sunlight on the water. Power Island stands out against the backdrop of Old Mission Peninsula.
1:00 PM—Clouds forming in the east while the sun begins to peek out and add spots of color to the opposite shore.
Friday, September 9, 2022 - I'm happy to announce that two of my paintings—“Pine and Shadow, Loose Park” and “Late Afternoon Sun in the West Bottoms”—have been included in the Prairie Village Arts Council's "State of the Arts 2022" juried show. There will be an opening reception from 6-8pm this Friday, September 9, at the R.G. Endres Gallery at Prairie Village City Hall, 7700 Mission Road, Prairie Village, Kansas, and the show will be on display through Saturday, November 5.
Here's more information about the show: https://www.artspv.org/sota2022.html
Pine and Shadow, Loose Park - oil on canvas, 40" x 30"
Late Afternoon Sun in the West Bottoms - oil on canvas, 24" x 24"
Sunday, August 14, 2022 - Another summer bike ride around town, observing my fellow humans and trying to capture in paint the light and shadow on the trees of Loose Park.
Ol’ Stretch, in addition to being a nice ride, makes a pretty good painter’s chair.
August Afternoon, Loose Park - watercolor, 9” x 12”
Vaping and talking and sipping at Crow’s Coffee
Across the street from the coffee shop, at the entrance to Whole Foods Market, it was a different scene.
When I walked over to make a contribution, I asked if things were all right. She didn’t understand my question, so I asked, “Okay?”. She nodded and replied, “Okay”. And as I write this tonight, I hope she is indeed okay.
Fire + Inaction
Friday, August 5, 2022 - This week, I’ve rendered an image from a theme that has shown up in my artwork for many years now. It’s also been in the news for many years, and never more so than during our current blazing hot summer. Here’s a brief evolution of an idea that nags with increasing urgency.
Watching the Distance, #1 - 2000 - watercolor, 4” x 6” Maybe there’s a hint of a blaze on the far horizon…or is it just a particularly colorful sunset?
Watching the Distance, #2 - 2002 - oil on canvas board, 6” x 8” Okay, it’s definitely a fire. But it’s not affecting me…not yet.
Mowing the Lawn While the House Burns - 2006 - oil on masonite, 24” x 30” No explanation needed for this metaphor.
Watch Party - 2022 - watercolor and gouache, 9” x 12” Should we be scared now?
Sunday, July 24, 2022: The sketchbook is always on hand. Here are some random gleanings from the latest volume.
Smokin' a ceegar
Outside Crow's Coffee in Waldo
Lunch at Dagwood's in KCK
Independence Avenue denizen
The bar at Jasper's
Kokoro Maki House
The Konza Swamp Band, Jammin' at John Boy's
Waiting room at KU Med Center
Music fan
Another music fan
Music fan w/wine
Mike Compton, Jammin' at John Boy's
Man reading an actual newspaper
A scholar at his regular post, Prairie Village Library
Sunday, July 10, 2022: I recently picked up a used Rans V2 recumbent bicycle and outfitted it with a cargo rack and panniers for painting expeditions near my home in Kansas City. It’s fun to go where cars can’t necessarily go and find a spot to set up the easel. The summer weather can be a little trying—today I could’ve sworn my brush was wilting in the heat—but it’s still worth going out and seeing what I bring home.
Pine Under Stormy Skies, Loose Park - July 2, 2022 - watercolor, 9" x 12"
Ol' Stretch, my studio-on-wheels, at Loose Park
Trolley Track Trail at 57th & Brookside - July 10, 2022 - watercolor & pencil, 12" x 9"
Heat and Humidity on the Kansas River - July 18, 2022 - watercolor, 9" x 12"
Distant Trees, Loose Park - July 30, 2022 - watercolor, 9" x 12"
Sallye Cane, 1914 - watercolor, 12” x 9”
Saturday, July 9, 2022: Sometimes, we find a picture that leaves us with questions that can’t be answered; a few scribbled notes on the back of the image might give a name and a date and nothing more. That was the case with this photo in a family album, upon which I’ve based this watercolor.
I don’t know who Sallye Cane was, or why she was standing out by a rural Louisiana road with a suitcase over 100 years ago. Any relative of mine who might know is long gone.
And so, when there’s nothing much to go on, we fill in the story ourselves and relate it to our own world. When I consider Sallye, I’m reminded of a Guy Clark song with these lines:
“She ain’t goin’ nowhere, she’s just leavin’
She ain’t goin’ nowhere she can’t breathe in”
And I think about all the women now, in 2022, going forward into an uncertain future with, suddenly, fewer rights than they’ve known before.
Catfish, circa 1935 - watercolor & pencil, 12” x 9”
Friday, July 1, 2022: After a month of brooding, inactivity and thinking too much (it happens frequently), I got the paints out again. I knew I wanted to return to the images I’d been working with before, but it was time to get away from tight detail and monochromatic color schemes. So, late last night, I went full-on in the other direction.
Looking at the source photo, I thought these men—including my grandfather, on the right—out there on a boat in the swirling, liquid mud of the Mississippi River in 1930s black-and-white, might want some color. They’ve got to be starved for it; it’s been almost 90 years.
Here you go, guys.
Thursday, June 9, 2022: I’ve done a larger (22” x 30”) version of Emaciated Forest.
Emaciated Forest - watercolor and white gouache, 22" x 30"
Tuesday, May 24, 2022: My investigation of old family photographs has taken a turn. I’ve moved past my father’s snapshots from the 1960s and 70s, mostly of people I remember, to earlier photos, often unlabeled. In the first of these, I became interested more in the clearcut forest background than in the figures up front…it took me back to an old abandoned project originating in a dream about my dad’s last days, more than twenty years ago. In the dream, I was sitting through the night with him in a small tent pitched on land brutally ravaged by loggers, much as Dad’s body had been ravaged by cancer. I tried to paint pictures about this dream, I tried to write poems about it. Nothing came of it, and I finally gave up the attempt. But maybe it’s not ready to be given up…maybe that emaciated forest in my dream was hiding in an old photo. I’ve painted the scene without the figures, as an exploratory step. I’ll keep painting and hope to learn more.
The surface texture of these paintings is heavily worked, obviously. I lifted spots of paint with water and a paper towel. I painted areas over with white gouache and sometimes applied gouache with my fingers and thumbs. And in Emaciated Forest, I laid grass clippings on the painted surface, sprayed the painting with water, and let it dry as the clippings absorbed paint. Sweeping the clippings away left the effect of broken sticks and roots in the foreground.
Picnic on Clear-Cut Land, 1920s - watercolor & gouache, 9" x 12"
Emaciated Forest- watercolor & gouache, 9" x 12"
I’ve returned to a series begun in 2020 where I take old photos from a family album and re-interpret them in watercolor. These pictures have a different look from most of my work—more detailed and less immediate—and they apparently have a different purpose, as well. I’m not trying to capture a moment in this instance; the moment was captured a long time ago, usually with my father as the photographer. What I’m trying to do is explore the moment, to feel my way around all its corners in order to understand more fully the world of my grandparents and parents. That world contains the operating manual I carry in my head today in a much different time and place. Sometimes I almost feel if I concentrate hard enough and stay at it, I could, one late night, travel down the paintbrush and into the picture, where I could converse with the subjects.
That hasn’t happened so far, although the making of these pictures has been uniquely satisfying and meditative. Maybe that in itself is enough.
Mer Rouge Tavern, 1968
John Shackelford, 1969
Willie Moore, 1968
Accident, 1969
Wreck at Harrison's Store, 1968
Claude Ingram, 1968
TV, 1968
Nana and Grand-dad's Trailer, 1968
Burning Rice Fields, 1968 (sold)
Friday, April 29, 2022: Using some larger, square canvases I had lying around, I went out to capture a couple of local scenes. It was tricky at times—the canvases acted like sails in the steady wind of a Midwestern Spring, and I always had to be on guard to stop the easel from tipping over.
Trail up the Mud Creek Levee, Lawrence, Kansas - oil on canvas, 20" x 20"
Late Afternoon Sun in the West Bottoms, Kansas City, Missouri - oil on canvas, 24" x 24"
Sunday, April 24, 2022: Two quick sketches of Springtime returning to Kansas. The color scheme is changing fast, and soon it will be green everywhere.
Mill Creek Trail, Shawnee, Kansas - oil on canvas board, 12" x 14"
RR Xing, Shawnee, Kansas - oil on canvas board, 11" x 14"
Sunday, April 3, 2022: In rough and blustery weather, I managed to paint a few plein air canvases on an early Spring day in the Missouri River bottomland near Farley, MO.
Stilling Road, Farley, MO - April 3, 2022 - oil on canvas, 11" x 14"
Fallow Cornfield near Farley, MO - April 3, 2022 - oil on canvas, 11" x 14"
Dry Lake Road, Farley, MO - April 3, 2022 - oil on canvas, 11" x 14"
Wednesday, March 2, 2022: I spent a few days visiting Mom back home in Heber Springs, Arkansas and managed to get a couple of watercolors in.
I’m always surprised when, about three weeks before the change of season, I’m made aware of that change by a combination of subtle differences in the air—the smell of plants budding or ripening, the song of a bird that hasn’t been heard in months, the quality of light—that makes it clear that what we’ve grown used to is about to change. This past Monday, the last day of February, was when I got the message that Spring is determinedly on its way.
Snow on Round Mountain, seen from downtown Heber Springs - February 28, 2022 - watercolor, colored pencil and white chalk, 9" x 12" (sold)
Pine Tree at Sandy Beach - March 2, 2022 - watercolor, 12" x 9"
Blue Sail Coffee, Conway, Arkansas - March 2, 2022
Friday, February 25, 2022: I took a walk to get a cup of coffee and see what other people were up to. Amid the gaiety and small talk, there was a lot of speculation about what the world would look like after the events of this week.
One of my favorite scenes in Kansas City is the grove of tall pines at Loose Park. I’ve returned to the pines this winter to study their strong patterns of light, shadow and color. Plus, it smells really good there.
Looking East on a Winter Afternoon, Loose Park - February 25, 2022 - acrylic on watercolor board, 27" x 20"
Pine and Pathway - January 14, 2022 - oil on canvas, 20" x 16"
Pine and Shadows, version 1 - January 15, 2022 - oil on canvas, 20" x 16"
Pine and Shadows, version 2 - February 3, 2022 - oil on canvas, 40" x 30" - I took the original and re-made it in the studio on a much larger scale.
The Grove at Loose Park - January 29, 2022 - watercolor, 9" x 12". A warm day, lots of people out.
Melting Snow in the Pine Grove - February 6, 2022 - oil on canvas, 11" x 14"
Saturday, February 19, 2022: A brilliant winter day. I walked through my snowy neighborhood to the post office to ship a painting to its new owner, then grabbed a cup of coffee at the cafe nextdoor. My friend Chris DeVictor invited me to attend his recording session at Clarke Wyatt’s place, so I got to spend a lot of time hanging with friends, listening to great music and drawing.
A great day to walk to the post office.
"Urban Crowboy" prepares to fly to its new owner.
Saturday morning crowd at French Market Cafe.
Chris DeVictor is recording an album! (sold)
Chris DeVictor, bass and vocals; Beth Nelson, banjo; David Regnier, guitar; Betse Ellis, fiddle; Joe Pickett, mandolin. (sold)
CeeDeeVee, again. (sold)
Producer/engineer Clarke Wyatt preps the band for the next take. (sold)
On a cold, sunny day in early January, I walked along the ice-choked Missouri River in Parkville. It was just below freezing, which is when watercolors do some unpredictable things. The water (and paint) sometimes freezes and crystallizes on the paper. It’s only when you take the paintings indoors and let them thaw that you really know what you’ve got.
I also later made an oil painting from a photo I took of nearby Rush Creek.
Ice Floes on the Missouri River, Parkville - January 9, 2022 - watercolor, 9" x 12"
Nearman Creek Power Station on the Missouri - January 9, 2022 - watercolor, 9" x 12". The paint had become nearly unworkable at this point!
Ice and Shadows on Rush Creek - January 13, 2022 - oil on canvas, 24" x 24"