The Sunny Pea

Jess had me quickly throw a website up for her last year. Now that she has had a show and has pieces in a gallery, she is ready to have it refined. Stay tuned as we work together in collaboration to create a site that gives her the exposure that she wants and highlights her talent. If you want to preview it as it is right now and watch for future changes, you can find her site at: http://www.jessj.com/ . The picture above is a piece that she did for us for Christmas. The three birds are done in the colors of our three kids' birthstones. The jpeg photo does not do the beautiful artwork justice nor does it show the intricate detail of her scratch board work. We have it hanging in our entryway for all to see - stop by and take a look at it yourself!

18 x 24" Acrylic

Mt. Hood, Oregon 24 x 36" I plan to keep this painting simple, so I won't be adding a lot more detail, but will make sure it has a finished feel. I plan to use pallette knives as I already did on the mountain and sky. I want to retain to peacefulness of the scene. We live in a beautiful country. A beautiful world.

Ok, so today I painted this picture of Cleo. It took me all of 3 hours, not including cleanup, planning, etc... nor taking the picture. It is an 8 x 10" painting on canvas done with acrylic paint and glazes. I am willing (for an undetermined amount of time) to do these on commission for anyone who is interested. The price for an 8 x 10" acrylic will be $75. What I would need from you is a good quality photo (not copyrighted), preferably in a jpeg format, but I can scan photos also, to work on them from viewing my computer. If you are interested, or know anyone who might be, please email me. My email address is linked in my profile.

11-1-08 note added: Photographing art is difficult. I found it is most difficult when the artwork is a portrait. I have replaced the image I had on here previously with the new one, below. The contrast and levels were way to flat in the last jpeg, and dimension was lost on Terry's face. This one shows almost too much detail, with shadows bouncing off brush strokes, but it is the best I can do without the right equipment and lighting. 16 x 20 acrylic ©2008 Cheryl L Johnson

I was thinking today, as I carried my laptop from my studio to the house, carefully still open so as not to put it to sleep and allow AOL Radio to keep playing. "Wow, it wasn't long ago I was carrying around a transistor AM radio and was limited to one station I actually liked." How far we have come from, not just from the dial up a few years ago to wireless, but now I can tune into any type of music I want to listen to and carry a computer around to play it. Here is North Road Goose Crossing (or whatever I am going to call it) as of today. I want to add a bit more detail in the foreground, maybe to the leaves on the ground, and do some clean-up on it. I am a bit discouraged, I just can't, to my liking, capture the beauty of God's handiwork. I am but a copycat of His masterworks, and a lazy one at that. My eyes are going dim as I am aging (just ordered my first pair of prescription glasses), maybe the art will improve... maybe then I will dare bare my soul in...

Threw paint on canvases today. Will go back and add layers of glazes and detail before calling them finished. Duck & Goose Crossing - North Road, Sunapee, NH Photo taken Oct 14, 2008 Here on the right coast, today I was inspired by the color that is still in peak. I wanted to capture the depths of contrast in colors and shadows. Even though it is an overcast day, the colors of the leaves create the feeling of bright sunshine. This scene is right outside our neighborhood, going into town. Many times we are stopped in front of the weeping willow waiting for ducks and geese to meander from their pond to their farm. Some of the geese are indignant and yell at us to get off their road, not caring that we are much bigger than they are. Haystack, Cannon Beach, OR Photo taken October 12, 2008 On the left coast, late on a Sunday afternoon, we made a quick visit to the Pacific Ocean before flying home on the red-eye. Haystack Rock, at 235 feet high, is the third largest coastal ...

I was not planning on doing any more paintings until after Caiti's wedding, with everything that needs to be done in preparation for that, but I was inpired by a friend of ours who does his paintings by starting with a black canvas. I saw his 4' x 5' painting of Copenhagen in progress the other day and have been itching to paint ever since. It goes against my grain to even use black, but if the paint is completely dry, it won't muddy up the other colors, it just shows where you don't cover it. The result is a painting with lots of contrast if you paint extra thick .... Anyway, today I sat looking at everything that needs doing and decided I didn't want to do anything ... so I painted. While I waited for the black to dry, I cleaned a bathroom and went though and cleaned two cupboards and our medicine cabinet (all kinds of expired stuff...). This is what resulted so far. I love the contrast that using a black canvas makes. It looks like I have a lot of det...

These are three of the paintings that were in progress shown in a previous blog. Terry walked into my studio yesterday and asked why they weren't signed. I said, "cuz their not done." He just laughed and walked away. He has a running joke that my paintings get an inch thick 'cuz I'm never done with them. So, I decided to show him. I did some "final" touch up, signed them, and here they are. Flaws and all. These are acrylics on 12" (I think - they might be 15"... I'll measure them later...) square wrapped canvases so they don't need a frame. I meant for them all to be together, so I'm not sure why I signed all three. Maybe I'll go undo that. Terry and I had taken a drive to see a big ski resort in VT (dead ghost town in the summer time) and came back through Woodstock, a town we really like a lot. We were zipping through in the convertable and I was snapping pictures of anything that caught my eye. The colorful flowers were one.

Faith, hope and wisdom. Supposedly that is what the Iris symbolizes. The Iris has a significant place in history as the emblem of France -- the Fleur-de-Lis -- established in the 11th century by the king of France. Here is an AMAZING painting of this intricate flower called Iris, "in All Its Glory" by artist Gary Mizar: http://www.art4god.com/ncac_07/comments.php?aid=020&eid=B I should aspire to do such work. I need to stop painting so lazily and get back into the detail.... (PS - no I have not entered this contest. I just found it online recently.) ...until then, I shall paint wall hangings that greet me when I get out of the shower.

Ahhright. I was home today, recuperating from being sick, when I had a sudden burst of energy, so I decided to paint. I worked on the acrylics a bit... but got bored very fast ... I will finish them all and post them when I do, but meanwhile, I took a diversion. Across the room from where I sat was a pristine blank, white canvas. It lay there just waiting to have paint transform it into something more than fabric and wood. It looked at me as if to say "pleeeease?" I could hardly stand it. But what? What would I paint? My journey lately as an artist is to focus less on me and my abilities and more on the One who created me - the great Artist and HIS abilities. Every morning I get everything off my mind and on to pages of paper. What started off as mere mumblings about this and that have turned into a form of prayer and establishes my focus for the day. Anyway, I can get into more of that another time, but one thing I have been learning is not to get bogged down with techni...

Through the silence breaks the thunder rolling on the mountains high birds of whisper clocks of chiming summer's moving winter's nigh solo whistle in the trees nothing's moving not a breeze Silence calls out,"Listen to Me." ~ CLJ711 ©2008 "FERNS PRESERVED" (OIL) I would like to take the time to share with you my works in progress. This is hard for me, as I don't like to let people see unfinished works of mine. Unfortunately, as I have learned, I have never been really satisfied that ANY work of mine is ever finished... I am growing though, and learning to accept my humanity. Just as we have been created by the Creator, we were created to create. This is my offering of thanks. First of all, I will take you into my studio, which is down this hall, through the door, past my painting of a clear blue New Hampshire sky at Canterbury Shaker Village. My studio as of right now is located over the sunroom in our home. In the ...