Return of Happy Train

I ride the happy train. Sometimes, if I'm not on it, I think about going on another ride. Soon enough, the train arrives and off I go. I realize that happiness is a choice. No matter how bad things may seem, and this is not often, really, I hope I always can still make this choice. If I choose to be happy, then I'm back on Happy Train. In this painting (sorry the flash bounced off the wet oil paint all over the place) I'm trying to show you what Happy Train might look like, or convey the feeling of being on Happy Train. This is hard to show.




Return of Happy Train
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
2010

Remembering Barbara Arteta

I never intended my art or this blog to be about sadness. In fact, and I have said this many times, it seems like the sun is always shining and it's a very nice day in my art.

I can't expect that some untoward events won't find themselves seeping into what I paint. That is certainly the case with this poor woman, Barbara Arteta, who sat across the aisle from me on the train to Florida a few weeks ago. Some time, during the night, she was presumably thrown off the train and she died. In the weeks after this tragic event, I began to have small memories of sounds that I overheard that night, of what I now believe were her last minutes on the train.

I did not know her, but somehow there is a connection that I can't or won't move away from. So, I made these paintings knowing that she was on my mind.



Certainty
Oil: 12" x 12"
2010







Landscape for Barbara Arteta
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
2010








Blue Garden
Oil Painting: 12" x 12"
2010

Lisi's Pink Rose

I've been working on this painting for the last few days. It comes from a photo made by one of my contacts on flickr, Lisi. I wrote to her last week saying how much I liked the photo and asked permission to use her photo as the basis for an oil painting. I liked the rhythmic arrangement of the flower petals, how they danced around. She was delighted (well, wait and see what she thinks now that the painting is done).

I cropped her photo to make it my favorite square shape, I took the pink out and replaced with lighter tones and turquoise, purples, greens and blues (my latest color palette) and voila! The original petal shapes are there, reoriented in a happy way.

I wrote to her today to say the painting was done, but I see she was feeling poorly and is in the hospital. So we'll correspond another time. Well anyway, here it is...


Lisi's Pink Rose
Oil Painting: 18" x 18"
2010