Haynie Collaborations

Sherri and I did a series of collaborations with a fish theme. I sculpted the fantasy fish with sculpy then painted them. Sherri took the fish and designed them into a box frame with embellishments.

The frames are cigar boxes. The fish have mosaic and glass bead inlays. 

art love

Jeff

Luna

This is my latest painting from my cat series. It's called "Luna". She has a sense of royality about her. The floating candles are symbolic of her thoughts, hopes, and dreams. As the lights move into the background they turn to stars. This is symbolic of her hopes becoming faith. Of course there is some fish jewelry around the collar. The patterns in her eye as you can see in the detail image are symbolic of vision. 

art love

Jeff 

My latest painting

I've been working on this painting off and on for the last 5 years. Finally I finished it. The image is about believing in yourself. It's part of my Northwest landscape series. It's an oil painting wrapped in copper metal. Then I inlayed mosiac tile around the edge. Then I used leather tools to pound in shapes in the metal. The letter have been embossed in copper. The dragonflys are sculpted with sculpy then painted in acrylic. Check on my earlier post that shows the sculptures.

It's hard to explain how hard it is to live the life of an artist. What you do is put out there for anyone to say anything. So many creative people don't see their talent within much less believe enough to let it out. Our culture doesn't really encourage creativity unless it fits into a way to make money. 

Sherri and I began years ago to allow our lifestyle, living space and thought process to be more conducive to creative expression. It's our individual voice that gives variety to life. Wheither it's the colors you choose, the shapes you draw or the idea, your creative voice belongs to you and nobody else. Treasure it. Nurture it. Don't be ashamed of it. 

It's a joy to see each one of my friend's personal work. Each time I see a new piece I learn just a little more about them. 

blessings and art love,

Jeff

New artwork in Spectrum 16 and Expose 7

Two of my new paintings were accepted in Spectrum 16 fantasy book which will be publish in November.  

The first one of my personal works called "Deep Dive" which is about a diver discovering a city hidden underwater. It is the moment of discovery.

The other painting was created for Mystery Case Files Return to Ravenhearst video game called "The cablecar". The painting is about a cablecar that has been converted into a gondola used to travel down the cliffside in the game. 

Also my first cat painting will appear in Expose 7. I'm so excited about this opportunity to expose my cat paintings in an international annual. 

Jeff

My mural days

There was a period where I painted murals when I lived in Texas. I design 2 logos, signage and a mural which I painted with the help of an assistant for the Ritz building in downtown Mckinney Texas. In the back there was a coffee shop called the backstage coffee shop. Since the coffee shop was opened during the day, I had to paint the mural after hours. The owners would make fresh pots of any coffee that I wanted right before they would lock me in for the night as well as give me free rain of the italian ice machine. When the mural was completed,  I signed it with a torn ticket stub. 

Jeff

Being Self Aware

Halibut, rock sole and flounder are strange looking fish in that the eyes are on one side of their bodies. When I did this drawing I was inspired by the halibut. The idea is that we only see in part or only part of what is going on around us. I've been learning a lot about being more self aware of my surroundings as if adding more eyes on my body to see more. See more, listen more and just be aware of what you do and how it affects other people. There are so many things in a given day that desensitizes us. I call this drawing "being self aware". 

art love

Jeff

Another textured fish painting

When I did this painting, I was experimenting using gel medium. Just a different texture. For the scales I used the head of a nail to get round scale like shapes in the texture. The fins I used a comb while the medium was wet. So many people have commented that this painting looks like stained glass. I guess it's because of the dark line around everything. The title of this painting is "Seize the Day"

art love

Jeff

Textured fantasy fish paintings

In the early 90s, I started a series of fantasy fish paintings that had a heavy texture. I called the series my "Textured Fish paintings". After doing so much tight airbrush painting, I needed to do something that had a wild rough texture. So I got some modeling paste. Opened the jar and used my fingers to wildly wipe it onto hard board. It gave me a sense of freedom to just make a mess. Well I had to dig the modeling paste out from under my fingernails but hey I felt better. No cutting frisket to airbrush. The first painting is called "Blue Freedom" which described what I felt like with this new technique. The next painting is called "Moon Dancers". I took the shape of the shadow of the moon crater and just repeated it. As the shapes come forward they turn into fish. All of these paintings have been studies of shape, color and texture. I use acrylic paint to block in the underpainting and then do dry brush acrylic on top with light colors to just catch the top of the texture. There are a few closeups so you can see the texture. Freedom is a good thing.

art love

Jeff

Art and Soul workshop

Last Fall, Sherri and I took our first art workshop together in Portland, Oregon. We took a class from an artist we admire. Michael deMeng. www.michaeldemeng.com

Micheal is an artist that takes junk and turns it into breathtaking art. Awesome concept. Take something that is trash to the average person and turn it into a treasure. Michael calls it Assemblage or Awesomeblage. 

We learned so much about our perceptions of what can be put together to make a cool art piece. The focus of the class was to take a tuna can and turn it into something. I took my can and added a beetle in glass, door hinge, Altoids tin, metal tooling foil and a taxidermist's fish eye. 

Sherri took her can and added a door hinge, wings, glass face, wire danglers etc.

We had a blast. 

Art is a journey. We wanted to try new things and experience them together especially without the cats getting into everything. 

I'm finding that as I grow there are two types of methods that are helping me open my eyes. One is reacting to something. Put things together and see what happens. Let it evolve.

Second way is by structured planning which tends to be additive by building on a strong foundation. Each method helps to keep me moving forward as an artist.

art love

Jeff

The Art Lounge

So there is this closet that used to be a closet in my house. Sherri had a vision one day and said this is now the art lounge. Why not. It sort of like when you were a kid and you put a blanket over a couple of kitchen chairs and made a tunnel to climb in. Well the art lounge has that kind of feel. It's the place that I have my quiet time and pray. It's a place I go for inspiration. It's a place I can go to pretend the whole world stops for a minute so I can think. 

We hung up art that inspires us and just made it a fun room. Sherri even made a sign.

Jeff

Fantasy Fish Sculpture with Mosiacs

A few years ago I wanted to try inlay mosaics in something. So I took one of my fish designs and cut it out of wood panel. Then I used a dremel tool and cut into the wood the thickness of the mosaic tile. After gessoing the board, I wrapped the fins with copper tooling foil. I used leather tools to pound in designs into the metal (wow that was therapeutic). Then I inlayed the mosaic tile. The blue and cooper tile chemistry was what got me excited. I've been looking a lot at ERTE's work with the iridescent metal embossing on his prints. Last I used acrylic paint to do a faux finish to the fish body. 

After Sherri and I moved up here to the Northwest, we started to see a lot of really cool glasswork. The translucent feel to the glass has really inspired me to think beyond the traditional surface of painting. All of these pieces are experiments, combining elements to get a visual chemistry. That chemistry of elements goes beyond words. It becomes part of the excitement of the artwork taking a life of it's own without me forcing it. I bought a kiln to start doing some clay sculptures and play with glazes. 

Once an artist said to me " Why do this stuff?" basically asking me what is this all for. My replay was "Why not!" Ok this is going to sound artsy fartsy but I don't mean it that way. I feel like the work that I have been doing starting with the fish, cats and landscapes have been honest expressions of my heart. 

honest art love,

Jeff

Dragonfly sculptures

I love to play with sculpy adding glass beads, mosaic tiles and sometimes metal pieces. With acrylic paint, I paint patterns and details. These dragonflys will be added to an oil painting I'm working on to add a 3d element to the painting. 

Jeff

Fantasy landscapes of the Northwest

Several years ago, I began working on a series of paintings that I call "Fantasy Landscapes". This is the first of the series called "The journey home". 

 My biggest influences for these paintings are: Maxfield Parrish, Hudson River School painters and Evyind Earle. All of these artist focus on light and shadow, color and a fantasy element. Evyind Earle stylizes the shapes and perspective to a point of abstraction. Maxfield Parrish has a breathtaking breakdown of light and shadow. The Hudson river school painters like Bierstadt and Church have a beautiful play of atmospheric light which is this haze of color that makes the painting glow. I've been fortunate to have seen a lot of original paintings by all of these artists.

Jeff

Valentine's day book

For Valentine's day, I made a book for my wife about our lives with our cats. It's called "for the love of little critters". Here are a few excerpts from the book. It was a blast to do. The cats have changed our lives or taken over it. Something like that. Anyway I think they run the house. You'll start to see why I paint cats.

blessings

art love

Jeff

Personal Sunshine

This is my latest painting from my cat series called "Personal Sunshine". One of my cats Pumpkin, a brown tabby, posed for me. The idea came from my daily goal to live a life of faith in God. No matter what is going on in the outside world, let the sun always be shining in your heart giving you a place to rest. You know that might sound cheesy but the reality is, life is hard. Pressures of life push on us all the time much less if we have internal pressures to deal with. Sometimes when the storm is raging all around, you need to find a place of rest and not freak out. Let it pass and blow over. This painting is about this. The fish are symbolic of the internal joy so that's why they are dancing in the rain. This is my secret to life on a daily basis. Psalm 91 explains this. "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty, I will say of the Lord, "He is my God, in whom I trust." Right now in my life, I'm the most blessed I've ever been both professionally and personally, however I've learned no matter what whether in blessing or suffering that I need the Lord's presence every day. 

So take your umbrella it might rain tomorrow. 

honest art love,

Jeff

Lino cuts and printmaking

Over the last few years I've been playing with Linoleum block printing. The process is really cool because the end result is very bold and graphic. Shape and line become very expressive and dynamic. This image is called the "bowl of hope". We all need to eat out of it probably everyday. The print is a 2 color on a banana paper. I've been studing Gustave Baumann who was an amazing woodblock printer form 1881-1971. His prints look like impressionist paintings. 

Eventually I hope to do fish prints this way. 

art love

Jeff

Fish sketches and sculpture

The fish form has always been fascinating to me. It started when I lived in southern Louisiana. My brother and I would fish in the Atchafalaya river spillway deep in the swamp. We would catch fish all day long. Sometimes the fish were ugly. Those were called shoepic or gar. The colors, the scales and the look left a big impress on me. In junior high and high school, I would hit the river almost everyday after school. The cutoff shorts would go on and I waded in the murky water for miles. There were sandbanks that help to define the river currents and edges. My calves on my legs are still huge to this day because of the workout to my legs. Water mocassions and copperhead snakes were everywhere. Yeah I was stupid but I didn't know better. Once I had a water moccician swim right between my legs. The water caustics were something etched into my brain since it was everywhere. 

So these were some of the visuals that have defined my art sensibilities. That's why so much of my work has water in it. Fish was part of my life up till college. Ah now I live in the Northwest where the rivers are a heck of a lot cleaner. During the summer I fish for trout. Man the irradecent colors on a brook trout or a cutthroat trout look like someone took a magenta paint pen and painted dots on the body. 

Here's an image I took from my sketchbook. The painting is still in works. The sculpture is made of sculpy. I inlayed glass beads, mosaic pieces and some metal enamel jewelery I bought in Praque, Chek Republic. 

The fish are a study of pattern, shape and color. My focus is to get a chemistry of elements to create a mood. It's like placing different things together to see what you get. Patterns, colors, textures, details all make the fish forms take on a fantasy feel. 

I never really had an interest in trying to do natural images of fish. There's a lot of great artist that do that type of thing. Even when I try to paint a salmon to look just like a salmon, I start pushing the form or put pattern on it. 

More fish storys to come.

art love

Jeff

Northwest fantasy landscape

I thought I would post one of the paintings I'm working on currently. I usually keep several going on at one time. This painting is part of my Northwest fantasy landscape series. The title is called "Place of Sanctuary" It's about my relationship with God and how his peace in my heart gives me a place to rest on a daily basis. At the top of the mountain there will be a house. Of course it will be a arts and crafts house. The water is a symbol of life coming out of an endless well. I am in the process of breaking up the shapes into light and shadow. Also there is a contrast between warm and cool colors. The sunlight will just be catching the top of the peak. For this painting I blocked in the big shapes with acrylic paint to get a base color. (see photo) Next I put an oil glaze over each area. Now I'm in the stage of painting the highlight shapes or what I call the light groups. This technique is great for me to relax. I don't have to think that much. I like that after a long day of doing fun game art and concepts. 

art love

Jeff

So here is part 2 of the sketchbook article for 2d artist magazine. Drawing in my sketchbook has really been a key process to my development as an artist. When I was doing a lot of illustration work, I would do layers of tracing paper refining the drawing each layer until the top piece of tracing paper was the final drawing. With the sketchbook, I lay in light lines to get big shapes and refine as I continue to develop the drawing. What this does is force me to think and respond to the shapes pushing to make each shape pleasing to look at. As I'm doing this I begin to break up the shapes in the light and shadow or what I call the light group and the shadow group. If you look at some of these drawings you can see where I made decision on breaking up the big shapes into light and shadow. Also I will add patterns of light and dark that sometime are just pattern like the body of the big fish with teeth. My landscape sketches are studies of light and dark pattern. It's the way our natural eye sees. I'll continue tomorrow on my rambling of light and shadow.

art love

Jeff