SOLD! Study for 'King of the Prairie

Paint where you are.

I was thinking about this the other day, how so many people put anything 'other' or 'foreign'  as somehow more beautiful, more interesting than where they live.  I think of friends who mention how beautiful France is, for instance.  ( And it is beautiful ) but then for those who have eyes to see, Oklahoma is amazingly beautiful.  We may not have fields of red poppies but I would put up any Osage fall with the golden rod, the broom and the red sumac against any field of poppies.  They are equally beautiful.  Paint where you are and you will begin to open your eyes to the beauty that already exists for you.  You don't need to travel more than a few steps or a few miles right outside your door to find it.  

Here is a link to one more beautiful place in Oklahoma that is for sale on ebay  Berry Picker

Painting the Figure

I thought it might be fun to visit the process that I go through on some of my figure paintings.  The final painting is actually available for sale on ebay.  The process photos are from a painting that has been sold.  Feel free to visit my ebay gallery by clicking here.

Pansies

This little painting was started in my class.  They wanted a challenge and this was it! They found those pretty little flowers were not as easy to paint as they had hoped.  I enjoyed the journey with them though.    

To Bid or just visit My Ebay Gallery CLICK HERE

Heber Srpings water falls

I just put this pretty little painting on auction on Ebay.  This was painted after a trip to Heber Springs, Arkansas last year.  What a pretty place.  I love just about anywhere there is the sound of running water.... unless it is a leaking hot water tank after an earthquake ;-)  That is a story for another day though.  The running water from this crystal clear, cold stream was welcome on a hot summer hike into the woods.
To visit this painting in my ebay gallery and see more of my oil paintings, CLICK HERE

Doing what we do best.

Doing what we do best... Oklahoma, with its miles of prairie land also sports the very best skies in the world.  here are just a few of the recent sky paintings that have sold this year.  ( the second one from the bottom is more recent and is for sale on ebay along with several other landscape paintings where the sky is the main player.)  To visit my ebay gallery, CLICK HERE.

To Bid or visit my Ebay Gallery Click Here

Every now and then I make it over to the Gilcrease, Zarrow Center's Saturday sketch time.  This was painted during one of those sessions.  Peaceful sublime....

Tulsa's 'The Artery'

I am happy to say that I will have my work at Tulsa's newest gallery located in downtown Tulsa, The Artery.  It is right in the hub of where everything is happening in downtown, in the Blue Dome District.  We had a soft opening the other night w a major one coming in March.  you can see some of my paintings in the background and some of my family's books, cds and my little prints in the foreground.  This is going to be a great space for art and music.  I am looking forward to working with them.

SOLD! but prints still available in all sizes for King of the Prairie

Order a Print

Grateful for these paintings finding good homes this year. ( Just a sampling )

Re visiting an older piece

This painting was 'completed' several years ago.  About a year ago I went back in and took out some things and added others.  The painting was started as a complicated still life for a class.  I had to put a little of everything in it so that no matter where my students were in the room, that they would have something interesting to paint.  As the teacher I pretty much demonstrated the painting of every object so therefore had a lot of objects in my finished piece.  This painting deals with the magic of childhood and contains a lot of my own and my students' toys.  It is for sale on Ebay.  To visit the painting in my ebay gallery and see more of my work, Click Here

King of the Prairie

This idea has been rolling around in my head for a while.  Out here in Oklahoma we live with both of the "creatures" in this painting.  It is a perfect example of the push and pull that human beings have struggled with for centuries.... nature VS human comforts....some who take too much, and those who pay for it....those who learn from the past, and those who repeat it.... sustainability VS depleting our gifts..... honoring our gifts and using them wisely, or not.... I could go on but ultimately it will be you, the viewer who gets to interpret the story.  Notice too that there is a storm brewing in the back ground.

Below are the beginnings and nearing completion of the painting.  I need to sit with it for a week or so and then will finish it.

a week later.... It is finished and sent to the new art gallery in town, The Artery.

Sugar Plums Dance .... Tulsa Ballet

In order for Sugar Plums to dance in their heads, you first need to learn how to dance.  This painting was done after a visit to the rehearsals for the Tulsa Ballet's opening season.  To bid on this or visit my ebay gallery, Click Here

Horton Records in Tulsa w my son, Jesse Aycock, Jacob Tovar, Wink Burcham, Lauren Barth, Paul Benjaman and more

Annual Holiday Art Sale at my house this weekend. Hope to see some of you locals!

Persimmons

It's that time again.... Time to take a walk in the woods without having to worry about getting chiggers or ticks and look for something sweet.  They are as much fun to paint as they are to eat.  If they are squishy and ugly, those are the ones you want to eat.  A lot of times you will find them on the ground when they reach that point.    You have to be quick though because the deer love them as much as you do.  ;-)

These are on auction in my ebay gallery today.  Click here to visit my Gallery

Foraging in Oklahoma

This time last year Scott and I were in a workshop over in Coyle, OK where we were learning about all the different kinds of wild foods that were available to us in our state.  I brought my camera along so I wouldn't forget how to recognize different plants.  While there I snapped a pic or two of other participants.  This is a painting done from one of those photos.  Just a side note, our facilitator was Jackie Dill, a Native American woman who shared with us her favorite gathering places and taught us how to identify and cook foraged food.  At this writing her stone home is nearly destroyed by recent waste water injection caused earthquakes that have rattled my own home which is a 2 1/2 hour drive from the epicenter.

To visit this piece in my Ebay Auction, Click Here

SOLD! Cecil plays the Piano Oil

I did this painting, which is kind of a departure for me, for a show that Scott and I did last year at right about this time.  The show was a back and forth between painting and poems.

Here's the painting that is on auction this week on my ebay gallery site, Click here to visit.

Here is the corresponding poem written by Scott Aycock

CECIL

Cecil keeps our yard trim as a sailor’s beard-

not a blade of grass out of place.

With a surveyor’s eye he places poles along

the hedge row,

making Grandma’s English Boxwoods

level as poured cement,

stretching the length of the drive.

He starts early and works through, into the

heat of the day.

I am just a boy.

Cecil comes to back door, hat in hand, like a child asking a favor of a man.

“Mr. Jo Eddie’s grandson, you ‘spose I could have me some ‘freshment?”

I go under sink where grandma keeps the

drink, pour comfort from a bottle.

I place a capful in a glass, fill the rest with water.

It turns the color of rosin.

That’ll do, Mr. Jo Eddie’s grandson, don’t need no ice.

He tips his head, tosses the drink, and wipes

his mouth.

It is a litany of motion.

Five drinks into the day, his tools put away,

Cecil comes to the door-  a final drink to stay

the blues away.

I being home alone,

Cecil points with fingered bone

towards ivories lined up in a row.

“Mr. Jo Eddie’s grandson, I can make that

coffin sing.

Some folks they scared a dyin’, but they ain’t got that rhythm thang.”

Cecil straddles piano bench, with one leg north, the other east,

to work the pedals, to keep the beat.

With both hands poised on whitened keys,

his long black fingers fill spaces,

make dark holes in the music,

as he begins a slow growl, a low moan.

“How…how…how…uh…uh…unh.

Gonna’ chase those blues.

How…how…how…uh…uh…unh.

Gonna’ chase those blues.”

Bowed over the keys, eyes closed,

Cecil is there in some sepia-toned place. 

It seems with every note, with every chord,

Cecil spills more of himself between the keys,

as though the music is drinking him one note

at a time.

With an ear bent to the ivories, listening for the sound of suffering as it leaves his fingertips;

Cecil’s hand begins to jitter, and juke, and then to jive,

into some boogie-woogie slide.

 His huge black hands, like crows,

flap the width of the piano,

as  Cecil tosses back his head, enraptured.

I am just a boy held in time. 

Watching.

As Cecil’s shoulders sway in time to the beat,

mouth open, he eats.

Drinking notes, swallowing chords,

half-digested they come spilling forth,

crude and primitive.

A truer sound.

Garlic from my garden, Blue Bowls and Cutting Board

This was our latest class project.  I had a bunch of new students and thought we might try something that didn't look too scary.  I really liked the way it turned out.

I had a nice harvest of garlic this year and it is one thing that you can leave out for an extended time with out it fading away or shrinking.  I just put this on auction on my ebay gallery.  To visit this piece in Ebay and wander through the gallery, click here

Osage Hills State Park in fall

There is nothing I like better than sitting in nature w a canvas and paint.  I especially like being near running water.  As luck would have it it was a very cloudy day as we visited Osage Hills State Park this weekend where I did this little sketch on the edge of this sweet little creek.
Here it is on my ebay auction this week... Click Here for Auction