SPORTING ART: ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS AND PASTELS FROM A KAYAK

kayakers
Paintings of kayakers

I am a kayaker, not the most agile one as you’ll see if you read the stories below. I love water, it’s what I paint and some of my best inspiration has been on the water in a kayak.

I enjoy painting the subtleties of water and how reflections change and become their own image while the depth beneath has it’s own intricacies.

This is what I love about painting water and why it has been a joy for me both through photography, oil painting, pastels on paper and writing.

These original paintings have already sold but I do commissions from photographs, etc. We can capture that moment and why you enjoy being out on the water, kayaking, surfing, etc.

Lake Texoma 2018

16×20 oil on canvas Lake Texoma 2018, from one of many trips to Lake Texoma.
Lake Texoma, oil painting on Canvas-Available for prints or for sale.16×20 standard 1/4 inch canvas. Painted in 2018. $600.00

This image of Lake Texoma was from a kayak-I enjoyed the colors and how you can see the bottom and the rich warm colors of the stones.

I am increasing my interest in finding light in the bleakest days. There is no time or place where the richness of light speaks to me than when it is unexpected.

Original oil on canvas-16×20 standard 1/4 inch thick canvas. for sale $600. Prints available on request.

Catamaran on Lake Ray Hubbard

Sail boat on Lake Ray Hubbard

Original oil painting of sail boat on Lake Ray Hubbard, 18×24 for sale-sporting art series-$900.00.

This painting is actually a remake from a pastel sketch from Sandy Hook New Jersey, I created this years earlier. I liked the orange and yellow and how it reacted with the cooler colors of the water.

This series of sailboats and water craft were a departure from previous more detailed work, I concentrated more on the colors and the movement of water as expressed with looser strokes.

The one thing that has never changed and will never change is my interest and passion for nature. It is my solace and keeps me grounded. I am planning on traveling much more in 2019.

Blog posts from kayaking trips.

Navarre Beach

I would usually be shooting this from the kayak but in this case, Read More

Kayak view

This is the first kayak trip of our road trip and at this point I am rethinking the whole idea. I can’t say it was wonderful. 
Read More

Lake Texoma, Back on the water

The last time I kayaked was the first time in the Florida surf. I lost a rod, got dumped beneath a wave and remembered how awkward it can be when nature makes a fool out of you.
Read More

Kayaking

How fast time flies, a year of selling insurance, a new car, a year of building an art and writing business and here we are out on the water again. It’s been two years since I’ve been out on the water and I wish I could say it was smooth sailing.

Read More

Art Happenings Now

Cancer 2024 never give up

Window of Hope 2024 Pastel on paper- 12x18To Check out the exhibition

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAl5AbGyNhx

Hi all;

My artwork named ‘Rise from Turbulence: Window of Hope‘ is now being showcased at Cancer – 2024 exhibition, organized by Gallerium and powered by @Biafarin platform.

To learn more, please visit:

@biafarin #biafarin #biafarinart #StevenLinebaugh #Illustration #biafarinonlinesales #onlineartsales #buyartonline #onlineart #artonline #onlineartgallery #sellart #sellartonline #onlineartshop #onlineartstore #onlineartexhibition #onlineartshow #onlineartist #artmarketing #artmarketingservice #Gallerium @galleriumart #galleriumart @linebaughsteven

Art Tells A Story

Art – an Emotional Response

House in Sachse 2018
House in Sachse 2018

Art Tells a Story – Surrealism

For many years I have worked to paint realistically so I could eventually bend it even just a bit. My paintings have an underlying theme of darkness, loneliness and separation.

Moon Flower-Oil on Canvas
Moon Flower Oil on canvas 2018

It is intentional creating a feeling or emotion in art but just like creating words if the creative thinks of what they want to say the logical mind supersedes and all nuance is lost.

My Experimentation isn’t as much with painting as it is with writing for example, the use of music to separate the logic from the creative word. I have listened to music in the background that definitely affected the finished artwork but it was never specifically intentional.


Art from Dreams

I had a dream when I was very young- this is my grandfather and lightning hit the tree. Pops-as we called him-came out of the sawdust in a red flannel shirt. There was something ominous about this particular dream because one day long after the dream a lighting hit the willow in our backyard. This is the same willow in the Child of Ten painting below.

This post is about paintings that tell a story. I have often avoided this kind of art because I prefer to let the viewer make their own conclusions or stories from their own experiences.

I started the painting,  Child of Ten-several months before it was complete because the inspiration had to develop over time.

Child of Ten
Child of Ten- the death of my father inspired this painting

In this painting there is a recurring theme that I’ve included in many of my paintings: the blackbirds. The viewer goes into the ground and even into the casket to see a mirror of myself and how his death affected me and also that a large part of my childhood rests with him. The egg is a symbol of the soul, the moth is the death moth and a connection to nature. There are poems included in the right side and other symbols of the feeling of loss and a struggle with his absence. The tree behind the child is the Willow Tree in my backyard in an idyllic landscape a stark contrast to the depths of the grave.


Art and Recurring Themes: Blackbirds

My writing is inspired by loss. Losing a parent at an early age probably made me more of a poet or writer than I would have been otherwise:  it is changed me greatly.

In the family plot all are the same

from who they were or when they came.

A pine box but no words etched.

Only a presence we can’t forget.

A whisper and the wind lifts

an ember to a light place in the night sky

The poet, the writer, passes by…

The blackbirds make their appearance. I always have that haunted feeling when it comes to loss, death as growing up I realized darkness just as clearly and beautifully as light.

Grackles on a wire
Original Oil on canvas: The Grackles

These paintings were foreshadowed in a post back in 2018 on an original blog I had started. It describes the Child of Ten as well as several other paintings that finally came to be and it was on draft since 2018.


Art- a Story While Scuba Diving

A painting and a sketch of the black fish at Shark River Inlet. I mentioned this art in the post from 2018.

For more pastels from this series go to the blog-it is the original  blog


Art for a Contest About Fighting Cancer

A recent pastel on Paper Window of Hope created for Cancer Art Contest from Biafarin

Window of Hope 2024 Pastel on paper- 12×18

 

Milkweed, Chess, Social Media – LIfe Lessons

 SMilkweed, Chess, Social Media – Life Lessons
Milkweed-Chess-Social Media: A pastel from the Desert

Milkweed-Chess-Social Media-Life Lessons

The pastel is a new pastel but the original inspiration was from a cross-country trip to California in 1989. I have two previous pastels of the same area and still have not captured the image I remember.

Often a picture takes a while to form, much like learning certain processes. Self-taught in most of my creative endeavors, it has taken many years to perfect my vision, technique and the ability to capture perspective.

Painting is on hiatus lately, in fact today I tried painting a cardinal Christmas ornament and it was a futile attempt. I believe the in-between time of mental block or lack of creativity is when we are in the valley of the learning process.

First we receive the information, next we digest it, when using the newly found logic, it is awkward and what is usually second nature becomes difficult because of the learning process.

Only after the knowledge and technique becomes second-nature does it turn into instinct instead of learning, this is when we have accomplished understanding.

Playing Chess: Learning Curves:

I have been playing chess and have been losing terribly to even players with smaller ratings and yet I lose miserably. I believe it is because the knowledge of new moves and understanding has to be perfected in the mind before it becomes second nature.

FIrst you question, then you experiment with what you think is the answer and only after the answer is engrained in your instinct is it actually a learned process.

Some of the best lessons are learned from failing, trying again, failing again and only then realizing the process. I have been growing Milkweed from seed, first I failed with the seedlings until I learned what was killing them, than I failed the secondary plants that grew from the seedlings-I am just now realizing the process and understanding the why’s and how’s of gardening from seed, milkweed can be quite finicky.

Learning is a process, it can’t be rushed, it must be met with patience and a desire for the final outcome. Once we understand our failure, only then can we find the greatest success.

Creativity and Discipline

 

Creativity and discipline post-photo of Rocky Mountain National Park
From the Top of the Mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park

Creativity and Discipline – both have a symbiotic relationship – I’ve never been skilled at  paint by numbers nor coloring books. Staying in the lines was always so limiting, I was creative.

In elementary school, teachers allowed me the privilege to have lousy handwriting, afraid of stifling my creativity. This freedom has proved to be counterproductive.

When I started my career, I had to create lines, lots of lines that overlaid perfectly to separate images in yearbooks. I was forced to conform to the discipline of rules and that was a good thing.

Creativity needs discipline to keep tasks on track, to keep the vision from losing direction and to maintain the artists’ attention.

Stages of Creativity

There are three stages of creativity from my experience:

  1. The initial Inspiration: I see it, I want to say something about it, this can be reality, dreams or just completely from imagination. What follows is often varying degrees of time as the image develops.
  2. Writing with Patience: In my writing, it’s even worse-the story often becomes over a great amount of time and the story tends to explain itself. I am usually only given clues to what may happen.
  3. First Sketch / Underpainting: I create the underpainting or often a sketch in a notebook. This stage can literally last for years if nothing else shows itself clearly. I have so many notebooks filled and underpaintings hanging  on the wall.
  4. The Final: A shift occurs, suddenly all the images that were not clear find clarity. I believe that with discipline this process can be shorted as attention needs to be focused but this is just a theory.

Creativity and Discipline are Integral to Success

There is a magical  state that occurs in the center of creating  and that is when I know where every dab of color is supposed to go, it’s like paint by numbers without the lines. When observing a painting afterwards, there are often lines and highlights that are completely intangible to the artist but that is the magic of completely disappearing into a work.

 

Connection is Not Simply Seeking Attention it Should Seek Mutual Success

Why join a group? The Perks of a Collective

– Be a part of a artist or writers guild? There are good reasons we seek to be connected and it’s not always self-serving.

We Have the Answers – Sometimes We Just Need to Collect Them

Every business avenue or decision we make has had someone seeking the same answers. We all fail, fall down and get up with more wisdoms to carry along our journey.

Instead of learning from our mistakes, with all the information that is out there, we can learn instead from others mistakes and maybe save time and money in the process.

https://ntbca.org/   A Non-Profit who works with Dallas Businesses and Local Artists.

Artist Round In Rockwall

We Have Less Credibility If We Go Alone

The news travels pretty quick these days as does information. You tell two friends and they tell theirs, suddenly you have influence, people believe you have something worth saying.

Get a group to buy in on the same ideas and values and you have a union that is mutually beneficial for all.

A great place to connect with for art promotion

Artpromotivate.com

Share Good Content, Get Good Content

I believe if you share good content and help others with their problems, they are more likely to be available to help you with yours.

We are so much more of a collective of individuals, each bringing our own ideas from unique experiences, a team can not only do more than an individual can, they can share from experiences and perspectives you may not even have thought of.

My Experience with SEO, Social, Etc.

There is a time to seek professionals and pay them what they’re worth. Unfortunately, often capital can be a deciding factor but we as creatives should be doing our creative work, not marketing-each is a full time job.

Learn from Masters, Surround Yourself with People Who Know Things.

You can learn much if you surround yourself with people who are smarter than yourself. Give them tasks, make sure they are as invested as you are and you have a business that will grow and benefit all involved.

Bad Timing can turn out to be just what you needed.

Bad Timing – Would you buy a new car and go on a trip if you knew you were about to lose your job? Probably not the best financial decision but a timely decision in retrospect.

The truth: there is never a good time to make a change as much as there is never true security in working for anyone. There will never be a good time to go off the grid, to experience life, to take chances.

My situation was a total ignorance of my tenuous position but it allowed me to go out and take a wonderful trip that made me realize exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life: travel.

I have always travelled with my son or with family. As my son was growing up and finding his own path, I had a sneak preview of mine. Traveling alone is quite liberating and a metaphor for making your own decisions, choosing your own path and breaking out of the norm.

I went to visit a friend in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. I learned about carry-on luggage and what they don’t tell you about buying a cheaper flight and found myself in God’s country.

To be out there, with only time, your own thoughts and decisions, it is a recipe for truly finding your peace and joy and the scenery was pretty spectacular as a stellar bonus.

Since than, I’ve lost my job, got an insurance license, sold insurance for ten months, quit my job with nothing but my own skills and a will to succeed to define the future.

2 Years now and I’m still here, starting an already growing business and finding my path in this life….sometimes the universe, God for me, shakes you from your safe state and gives just a glimpse of the future.

You can choose to ignore your passion or allow the future to clumsily break through the barriers of your own safety. Make decisions, choose your own path and faithfully let the future become where your purpose truly lies.

 

Original Pastels on Paper in the works

Original pastel on paper – I’ve been doing a lot of pastels on black strathmore, but there is something missing, the darkness makes the colors pop but the light from pastel on white creates a light that shows through. Each process has it’s own plus and minus.

The wren on a rain barrel is a painting from an idea that has been waiting for more then thirty years to be finished. The original was on a large dark underpainting that turned into an autumn scene.

Dark purple background where leaves were supposed to be falling on water instead became the backdrop for a forest and then a log in a small stream. The idea went into the redevelopment stage and  has been silent for many years.

Wren on rainbarrel -  Original pastel on paper
Wren on rainbarrel – Original pastel on paper

The reason for the original idea, which didn’t include the wren, was how the ghosts of past autumns rise and fall beneath the surface of the water. It is probably the reason I started painting water in the first place, like the night sky there is something mysterious about the two different planes that react-the surface, the darkness beneath and the light above.

The next pastel is still a work in progress-it is capturing light on the water and how the sun appears bluish beneath the white but there is no ability to look directly at it, I wanted the viewer to feel the feeling of squinting the eyes to look at the scene.

I want the light to be tangible and almost adds another dimension of temperature to a flat plane. I am still in the process of working the darks against the lights.

Original Pastel of sun on water
Original Pastel of sun on water

The last pastel is something I want to do more of. I liked the dark brown beneath and how the two figures jump out of the background. I love the way portraits force perfection, there is no good enough, it either resembles what you are seeing or it doesn’t.

My ability to see detail has improved and portraits are much faster than they have ever been with no initial sketching preceding the final image. Without the initial sketching for placement, it makes for a cleaner less overworked image.

A poem on the subject 

A Lesson In Art and Perspective

A Lesson in Art: Distance and Perspective: There’s a cavern in California called the Moaning Caverns. My son and I explored it on a trip to California,  when him and I were much younger. So what does the cavern have to do with a lesson in art and Perspective?

You can fit the Statue of Liberty-minus the pedestal- in the first and largest single cavern space in California but looking up you would never have imagined the space to be so large.

Lake Texoma: Distance and perspective
Lake Texoma: Distance and perspective

What is missing is perspective, large to small rocks, colors, etc-you know the distance is there but there are no cues to prove it to your eye. In creating art with depth, you also have no cues to explain  distance and allow the viewer to truly experience the space you’ve created because it is on a flat dimension.

Have you ever photographed a great expanse of a landscape and you couldn’t understand why the results were less than spectacular compared to how it  looked? It all has to do with cues that explain distance and perspective.

Pastel on Paper: Rowlett Texas
Pastel on Paper: Rowlett Texas

Art Lesson: Visual Cues act as Tools

In art you have several tools to explain to the viewer what you are trying to describe:

Color: The change in color denotes distance.

Value: The shades of color, intensity, etc. all show the viewer there is distance and gives the image its perspective.

Perspective: The eye sees images that get smaller as they sit further back into the distance, giving these cues give the viewer the dimension that is really just an illusion on a flat canvas.

Converging elements: To further support perspective-a line that moves through your image allows the viewers’ eye to go where you intend them to go and experience the image and the artists’ intention of space.

A work of art is much like an illusion a magician creates, the control and the process in which the Artist leads the viewer through the flat image will allow the viewer to experience a painting as it was intended.

HOMEWORK: Photograph an expansive landscape with no thought of perspective or color, etc. Next photograph the same landscape only instead choose  a dominant image to showcase and allow that image to lead the viewers eye into the photo-make a note of the difference in the final product and share your experience.

A day at Discovery Gardens Dallas: Pollinator Sale

Every year in the spring and autumn, I go to the Discovery Gardens in Dallas to buy my fair share of plants. This year, I bought mostly milkweed as I am starting a garden next year with milkweed and passionvines.

I enjoy wildlife gardening and much of what my art derives from nature and enjoying plants. I have always loved science and planting for wildlife while photographing and writing about them allows my art and science to merge.

Other photography by Artbygordon

Artbygordon: Original oils on canvas, Original pastels on paper celebrating the beauty and mystery of nature. Water and night skies are my specialties.