A nostalgic view

Amazing what turns up during a major reconstruct on the house. I think this was my first endeavour at painting, watercolour, way back in 1990.
It was a paint a postcard competition in Northampton. I think I called it 'Holy Island in the mist. It's a little embarrassing but I think since then I've made some progress.
Anyone else got any nostalges they'd like to share?
Does nostalgia mean to look back with affection? In which case I'm not so sure.



Jack

I'll have to check around. Thanks for sharing. You have definitely made a lot of progress since then.

Judy

Hard to tell it's the same person who painted it, Jack. You've come a long way!

I decided to join Jack and go back 20 years.

This is from 1990. I'd returned to painting the year before, but with 4 sons between the ages of 10 and 3, I obviously wasn't getting to paint too often. This is acrylic on canvas - 18"x24". It's a scene from an arroyo in the Sierra Madre in Mexico.

Thanks Sofie for daring to join me. I like your 20 year old work it has character. But I notice the 'return to painting' so you had had some prior experience. Prior to my endeavour I had only done cartooning.

Jack

Sofie, I see that even then, the tree branches caught your eye. I like your rock formation and coloring.
Judy

Thanks guys.

Jack - I went to art school straight out of highschool. I painted in the early 70s and then gave it up when I had to work full time. At the end of the 70s I took up weaving and did that for about 6 years. Then I got tired of being controlled by the weft and the warp and longing for spontenaity, so I began drawing again, went on to pastels, and then back to painting.

(this post compliments of my grandson Kyren)

I don't know how old your grandson is. But I like his visual sense of humour
Jack

OK. If we are posting old paintings, then i want to play too. This one is in traditional oils


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Dale - please don't say you did this when you were first learning to paint at the age of 6!
As usual - fantastic water!

No I did this about 9 years ago before I left painting for a while. No child progidy here. In fact I started painting in my mid 20s with tole painting. I get a kick out of how people look down on folk art but waht a way to get people into painting

Very traditional painting. you can just feel th estorm brewing around the ship.

Judy

Thanks for posting Dale! It's so cool to see what you were painting like 9 years ago. water really seems to be your thing.

I'm hoping to see something from the rest of you guys!

Dale: I love your old painting! Yes, I spent quite a few years tole painting, too. Funny how tole painting doen't hardly pay for the cost of your paint, when some of it is as detailed as a regular artists acrylic painting. At any rate, I really don't care to paint much of anything but oils now.

Great topic. I am a new painter, but did attend one painting workshop about 35 years ago (!).

The paintings were rediscovered a few years ago by my parents in their garage. The paintings were in terrible condition, smelling of motor oil and mildew, so I scanned them and then quickly destroyed them before the Health Inspector could show up.

I will look around to see if I can find the scans of that stunning stuff, ha ha.

Looking forward to seeing them Alan
Jack

Wow! Dale you do have a gift for water, and seem to be drawn to it as I see it in most of you pieces...Great!

Tole painting, I remember my stepmom painting like that, I was in highschool and thought she did a pretty good job. I never ventured in that direction though.

Fun to see all of you old work -- I am not sure if I have anything left from years past, but will look around.

Dale, I am awed by your painting. Did you use a "rigger" brush for the rigging? And did you have to dilute the oil paint? Just fantastic! When I first saw it I thought someone was posting a photo of a painting from a museum like the one in Peabody, Mass. Wow!

Hmmm, think I'll go in a slightly different direction.



Three of these were done when I was about 4 years old (no, I'm not going to say in what year that was !). Can anyone guess which one was done in my late-20s or early-30s ? It probably was one of my first oil paintings. The one of the city does show my early penchant for detail. Haven't been able to break that habit yet !

In High School I was intrigued with space and loved the paintings of Chesely Bonestell. I did a couple of caseins with a space theme. Wish I still had them.

While I have a "few" years under my keel, in terms of years at artwork guess I'm still a a young-un .

Do I detect someone who's a bit of a hoarder Jim. It's obvious which one was done by you in your twenties? The cat. Hoho! Which was of course only a few years ago!

Jack

Cool, Jim! I wish I had stuff from when I was little. So neat to see.

My Mother saved a bunch of stuff that I did and put it in a scrap book. I didn't even know about it until after she passed away. I'd forgotten about it until I looked at this thread.

We used to "save" a lot. But after cleaning out and packing too many years of stuff for our move from Vermont to Wyoming, we don't do that anymore .

I dug around for awhile and found the scans of my early paintings. They were done in 1975 and 1976, at a painting workshop at Mount Allison University. I was 16 and 17, had done lots of drawing, but no painting. So, here they are in all their plein air glory, ha ha.

The originals were done in oil, on MDF board with no primer. The board measured 12" x 16". Some painters were disciplined enough to finish their paintings in the studio later that night, but I was not disciplined enough at that age to do that, so on some of them you can see the MDF board still visible.

The other two 'gems' are cartoons, published on my local paper's high school page. I was paid $4 each for cartoons. The newspaper published a dozen or so of my punny cartoons during my junior and high school years, permanently distancing me from being a 'true artist', more like the tainted 'sell out' that I remain today. (joking, but point being that money entered into the art equation from the start, and after one maddening year at a Fine Art College, I eventually pursued a career in commercial art rather than fine art.)

PS: As I look at them now, I think that the Westcock Cemetery painting was heavily influenced by maritime artist Tom Forrestall, http://www.forrestallfineart.com/painting.php?pid=38 in that the shape of the painted area at the top is curved rather than full canvas.

Alan. It's kinda great doing this. Dig 'em out, dust 'em off, glance and
tThat famous Maurice Chevalier song comes to mind 'Ah! I remember it well'

Pip pip
Cheers
Jack