Day Moon and Foothills

Juanita Tittle was Chair of the Art Department in the small college where I first began to study Art in 1947.  One of the many things I remember her saying was that a painting should "stand on its' own two legs".  This I understood to mean that if a painting were effective it wouldn't even need a title.  I also remember that she said this without a lot of conviction, because it seems in those days we were either standing around at art exhibits talking about pictures, drinking coffee and talking about pictures or sitting around painting and talking about pictures.  Sometimes I think maybe half the fun of art is the "talking about it".

 That having been said, I'll introduce the first image, Day Moon and Foothills.  This, I truly believe, is my best picture for the year 2003 although it didn't take as much time to paint as some and certainly didn't require very much research.  The easy flowing horizontal movement of the picture has a calm, stress relieving quality that I need and the colors are soft and reassuring as well.  This means I got both the beneficial therapy of doing the painting and the calming effects of looking at it.  Don't they call that a "win-win" situation these days?

The colors were mostly "lucked" into and the composition is the simple lines of the foothills around Johnson City, Texas located in a part of the State known as the Hill Country. 

Even though the subject matter is realistic, this picture has a certain quality of Surrealism about it.  I suppose the final category would be Design Realism, but for me it's just a memory of a pleasant place.

Walk along with me, so to speak, and we'll look at and talk about some other pictures or images and feel free to talk back to me by clicking on "Email to Bill Strain".

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