12″X13 1/2″  Watercolor on Arches 300lb paper

SOLD

“I believe that if it were left to most artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.”  -Ben Shahn, 1898-1969

Those of you who have been longtime followers of this blog probably know I don’t like being pigeon-holed as any particular type of artist. I really don’t like labels. Labels are things that art directors and critics use to justify their means. Labels are often divisive and counter intuitive. I prefer to follow my heart on any given day and create meaningful work that touches something inside me (and hopefully you), whatever it may be. It may be a caricature one day, or a cubistic, colorful watercolor the next.  Some days I wake up and all I want to paint are trains. I love trains, but I’m not comfortable with being called a “train” artist. It’s too limiting. I love horses, but I don’t want to be called a “horse” artist. Some days I want to go deeper, down to the ground floor of my soul and let something flow from that well, something so abstract that even I can’t get a hold on it. It’s all about who I am. We, as creative individuals all have multiple layers, years and years of life piled up on us and we all express how we feel about those layers and years in different ways. In my opinion, labels only hinder that process.

Here is my latest watercolor. It was inspired by a black and white photo by Louis D. Rubin, Jr., a wonderful photographer of the steam era.  It’s a small piece about a common occurrence in railroading, a “hot box”. A hot box is caused by a wheel journal box at the end of an axle getting too hot due to lack of lubrication and can actually catch fire due to the wheel friction. Railroaders must be vigilante of these issues with their trains for safety reasons. The main challenge in this piece was trying to get the feel of a cold, blustery day somewhere on the New York Central in the 1940s. I love working the wet into wet technique with a spray bottle to get steam and smoke effects. Spraying water on the paper and flowing color into it is thrilling. Trying to control and manipulate that color is the challenge. Skies are so much easier with that method. Allow water to do what it was meant to do with watercolor. Working in layer upon layer of washes will give you a rich piece that will have depth and life. Watercolor is a powerful medium and can elicit deep emotions and send your mind in search of the reasons a cold, cloudy day in New York can touch you so deeply. It certainly does mine.  -Enjoy!

14″x17″ Pencil on Strathmore 400 series paper

AVAILABLE, email me at CokerArt@yahoo.com for price

“People live in a world imposed on them. I create the world I choose to live in.” -Emil Kazaz, 1953-

Hey, I’m back! Where have I been, you ask? Well, between larger paintings and my server not working correctly for a couple of months, I’ve had little choice but to not post to my blog. I could have written posts, but to me, without images the world is just a little too gray.  Besides, I don’t think I’m a good enough writer to entertain the masses without an image. Most of the stuff I’ve been working on doesn’t quite fall into the category of  “a daily painting”. I’ve been finishing up a lot of my railroad/industrial landscapes as well as many of my larger satirical pieces. I’ve also been busy with several commissions, thank goodness! Hopefully, they will pick up as the economy picks up.

This piece is a pencil drawing I did recently of Lady Gaga, the eccentric pop diva, for lack of another way of describing her. I decided to focus more on her face than the wild costumes that have become her trademark. It was actually difficult to find an image of her without some of her wacky headgear. I really enjoyed modeling her hair, shaping it to frame her face. I will probably do an oil or watercolor from this piece soon. I also plan to do another one of Lady in one of her eccentric costumes. Stay tuned.  Enjoy!

10 1/2″ X 7 3/4″ watercolor on Arches 140lb paper

SOLD

“I could paint for a hundred years, a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing.” -Paul Cezanne, 1839-1906

I love to paint almost as much as I love life itself. It fulfills me, it nourishes me and sustains me, it challenges me, it gives vision to my soul and freedom to my spirit. It gives me a reason to keep moving forward… some might say it is my mistress. I’ve always tried to walk that delicate line of balancing family time with studio time. I hope my family thinks I did it successfully. They seem pretty well adjusted and happy. But since my lay off last year, which seems to have ended my newspaper career, art has become my main focus and source of income, therefore, I spend most of my time in the studio. I paint seven days a week. It has been an adjustment though, mostly the not being around people all day, outside stimulation, shared ideas. Fortunately, I am comfortable being alone. I enjoy the peace and solitude of hours of creation time. Painting, whether it be oils or watercolor, realism or satire, cubism or caricature, it’s all about the art of creation for me.  It all makes me happy.

This watercolor is another of my railroad pieces based on historical photographs. I have a growing library of books on the subject, as well as access to online photo archives. Painting modern railroads is probably easier because I can go out and shoot my own photo reference and or sketch from life. But when working on a piece about the history of railroading, you have no choice but to base your paintings on many photo references, mostly by photographers other than yourself. This watercolor was based on one such photo from a book on the Argent Lumber Company of South Carolina, authored by my friend Mal Ferrell. The wonderful power of art allows you to redesign images, deleting or adding information that strengthens the design and overall feeling of a piece. You are the climate controller and the time-of-day master. I wanted this piece to have the feel of an approaching storm when the wind picks up and the sky suddenly fills with dark, ominous clouds that slowly cover the remaining patches of cerulean blue. Watercolor has an almost mystical way of producing weather effects. I love that. That’s the main asset that keeps me coming back for more. I hope this piece stirs something in you, maybe an emotion you haven’t felt since you were a child, maybe…  Enjoy!

7 1/4″ x 12 1/4″ watercolor on Arches 140lb paper

SOLD

“The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.”  -Lucian Freud, 1922-

It’s been awhile since I last posted. I really need to find my groove again and stop with the dry spells. I’ve been working on some larger pieces, well, large for me, and that pulls me away from the smaller pieces for the blog. Most are oils on canvas and the subject bounces between satire and the railroad/industrial landscape, not to mention commission pieces of all shapes and sizes. I have mentioned here before that I have a wide range of interests when it comes to subject matter. I go from the absurd to hyper-realism, to the abstract, all in the span of the average week. Sometimes it makes me a little crazy.

I started this watercolor after spending days working on several oils, including a larger caricature of John Lennon, group caricatures of the band U2 and a very realistic piece of a Pennsylvania Railroad steam freight rolling through an evening snow scene somewhere in 1940s Pennsylvania. Talk about variety! After all that relatively tight painting and traditional technique,  it was a joy to loosen up with this cubistic piece. The flow of watercolor using bright colors direct from the tube while creating the overall design was very relaxing and much needed. Maybe that’s the reason I continue to explore different genres of art, instead of focusing on one theme. I think it keeps me fresh and open to the possibilities. I hope it shows.  Enjoy!

“Seule la beauté  peut sauver  le monde.”
“Only beauty can save the world.”  -Albert Camus 1913-1960

Hey everybody, sorry I’ve not been so active on my blog of late. I have a very good excuse though. I have been very busy doing some larger works for future exhibition, as well as packing and shipping smaller pieces to California. Why California you ask? I now have a gallery rep on the West coast! The “Just Looking Gallery” in San Luis Obispo, CA has taken on the daunting task of helping me move to the next level of my artistic life, whatever that may be. Ralph Gorton , the owner,  and his able-bodied assistant, Ken McGavin, the gallery director, now have about twenty pieces of my work in the gallery for sale. The photo above shows some of my small pieces in the gallery window. So, you guys in central California drop by the gallery sometime and see what all the fuss is about. I promise to liven the blog up soon. Stay tuned for more!

7 7/8″x5 7/8″ oil on gesso-coated board

AVAILABLE, email me at CokerArt@yahoo.com for price

“Courage is being scared to death – and saddling up anyway.”  -John Wayne, 1907-1979

This is my first post in over a week, mostly due to blog problems with my server. But as I have already stated, I’ve been painting a lot, both on fine art projects and some commercial. You know, trying to make a living. I guess that makes them all commercial. But that’s another subject for another day. I finished a painting for a friend, a really large yellow lily. Yes, I paint flowers too. It came out pretty well, if I do say so myself. Lynn liked it, so that’s what is most important. Ah yes, another satisfied customer.

As I am writing this post, it is a beautiful, sunny day, mid fifties and there are two tiny finches outside my studio window carrying on like there’s no tomorrow. What a beautiful sound. Last week, I walked out my front door one morning and a red-tailed hawk swooped down right in front of me, six feet from my door! It was amazing. I heard the swoosh of his feathers as he flew by within feet of me. I think he was as surprised as I was. I’m sure he didn’t expect to come that close to a human that morning. It was a memorable experience, one that I will never forget. They are one of my favorite birds.

So, about this painting I am posting. As is my habit with these small pieces, I rarely know what I’m going to paint when I sit down. I had been working on a Western art piece, another side of my oeuvre,  a modern-day cowboy working a two-year old horse, so I guess my heart was in the West (wait, my heart is always in the West!). This Cattle Baron sort of showed up. He represents those crusty, ruthlessly powerful men in the late 1800s that laid the foundation for cattle operations in the modern West as we know it. I guess he could have been a New York tycoon, or a railroad baron, but somehow he became a cattle baron before my very eyes. Kind of bullied his way on in.  Enjoy!

Hey everybody. I thought I would let y’all know that no, I haven’t killed the blog! I have been having problems with my server. You know, the one that begins with a big ole “Y”,  for the last several days, a most frustrating experience. But the good news (well, for some) is that I’ve been painting like a fiend and will post something new tomorrow. Thank you for your patience and I’ll be back shortly!

ArtGuy

17″x14″ pencil on Bienfang paper

AVAILABLE,  email me at CokerArt@yahoo.com for price

“It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”  -Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862

Okay, I couldn’t resist this. I probably should have drawn this a couple of weeks ago after Limbaugh’s noxious remarks about Haiti. But alas, some people insist on exposing their very worst on a consistent basis. Oh well, we caricaturists actually love guys like him because of the fodder they provide for our strange visual musings. I find it amusing that this guy who makes his living spewing forth such divisive rhetoric actually has a tiny mouth! Really, look at a photo of him. How does he get such huge amounts of junk to flow through that little space? It’s even more amazing that he chooses to smoke the largest cigars on the planet. He looks like someone shoved a fence post in his mouth. Hmmm?  Enjoy!

17″x14″ pencil on Bienfang drawing paper

AVAILABLE, email me at CokerArt@yahoo.com for price

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven now, and we don’t know where the hell she is.  -Ellen DeGeneres, 1958-

I thought I would start posting a few drawings from time to time. I try very hard to do at least one a day, but for all my good intentions,  sometimes poo poo gets in the way. I’ve always admired a fine drawing, the draftsmanship, the craftsmanship the mother ship… huh? Maybe they’re about to act on their promise from so long ago and come back and take me away. Okay ArtGuy, slow down, regroup, get back on track. You can do this. Maybe my sons DO get their lack of focus from me? Who knew? I read somewhere that drawings are kind of a road map of the artist’s intent when preparing to do a painting. Not sure who said that, but he obviously never met me, I stay lost all the time. I say with much vibrato and pride, I AM Mr. Fly-By-The-Seat-of-My-Pants!! But I’ve been dazed and confused ever since Taylor Swift, that young, lanky, still 14-awkward at 20, “country” singer won the top Grammy last night! Holy crap, has anyone ever told that child she can’t sing?! In the words of my Pop, God rest his soul, “that girl couldn’t carry a tune in bucket”.  Okay, I’m sure she’s a very sweet, young lady that every 10 to 12 year-old-girl idolizes, but she still can’t sing. Now, where was I..?   Enjoy!

14″x11″ watercolor on 140lb. Arches paper

This piece is AVAILABLE. Please email me at CokerArt@yahoo.com for price.

“I was given a tremendous amount of credit for having unbelievable insights, more than any known shrink could hope ever to have. I might have stumbled on something, but really wasn’t something you could count on and call ‘insight’.”  -David Levine, 1926-2009

This is a caricature I did back in 2008 of famed caricaturist, David Levine. In my mind he was the best caricaturist that ever lived and influenced my work like no other. I heard a couple of weeks ago that he had died in late December 2009. I was crushed. His work in The New York Review of Books, which numbered 3,800 pieces,  was what introduced me to caricature and gave me the direction my life would take.  I told the story on a previous post, but to recap, I saw an edition of TNYRB laying on the desk of a reporter in the newsroom. I was a lowly copy boy, my first year in the business, 1973. I stopped to peruse the edition and after seeing Mr. Levine’s amazingly deft pen & ink line work in the faces of then, current history makers, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, I knew I had to learn more.

Eventually, I moved into the art department and never looked back. It took me a couple of years to really get a handle on pen & ink, but it became my bread and butter until newspapers began using color in the early 1980s. In the early 1990s Mr. Levine came to my hometown, Columbus, GA, to lecture at Columbus State University on the occasion of a one-man show of his work. After the lecture I made my way to him and waited patiently, listening to his every word, awaiting the moment I had often dreamed of. When I finally got my chance, I introduced myself and told him I worked for the local paper and that he was the reason I’m not driving a truck. He laughed a shy laugh and said something self-deprecating. He was charming and all that I hoped he would be. He autographed a hand-out card of one of his images for me as we talked and was gracious and encouraging. I will never forget that evening and the feelings I had being in a room surrounded by original Levine’s and in the presence of the man that created them. For me, had I been a young pianist, it would have been like meeting Beethoven. Thank you, Mr. Levine, I’ll be looking for those lines in the sky. Rest well.  Enjoy!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/arts/design/30levine.html

http://www.nybooks.com/gallery/