2. Living in a Jim Warren Painting For my 35th anniversary as a professional artist, I have painted a girl reading The Art of Jim Warren book which transforms her into a world where anything can happen, and usually does, much like in a Jim Warren painting. Since my very first painting I have always set out to create a world much like the real world, exept for one without so many rules and restrictions. With art we can do that.
3. Mysteries of Life Life is such a wondrous mystery to a child. Actually it is still quite a mystery to us adults, we just often give up wondering!
4. Old man river. Often when I begin a painting, I start with something visual that I have already such as this man I photographed in the early 80s, beard and all. I then use my imagination as to what I can do with this interesting picture as to make it even more interesting, and even sometimes meaningfull.
5. Mountain Falls My children, ages 8 & 11 have grown up with my paintings expecting some unusual, surreal or whimsical twist to them. When I painted Mountain Falls, my daughter looked closely at it for awhile then said "What's weird about it?" I have always fought against being stereotyped as a surrealist or fantasy artist ...or any kind of artist for that matter. I simply consider myself an artist who paints what I want, when I want. For this painting I have painted a made up place that I would just love to live next door to.
6. Mountain Beauty Because of the smooth realistic style that I paint in people have sometimes asked if I use airbrush. The answer is I use only paintbrush with oil paint on canvas.
7. Gift from an angel They say that gifts come in all sizes, but some are so miraculous that we often forget to appreciate what a gift it really is or where it even comes from.
8. Fountain of Youth Fountain of Youth" is a painting I often find myself bouncing around with artistically. It is a combination of a portrait and an illustration for the label of a bottle of vitamins...named, "Fountain of Youth." My daily work is ecclectic. One day I find myself painting portraits, and the next I'll be working on a movie ad or some such project. When I have the time, I get to paint one of my own creations that I can display at one of the 40 galleries where my work is shown.
9. Mother and Child To me the bond between Mother and Child is almost fantasy like. It has been expressed often in books, movies, and in art.
10. If I Were a Mermaid and You Were a Unicorn Throughout my 30 year career I have often been asked to paint a Unicorn. At first I was hesitant because, honestly, I felt they were too 'girlie'. Finally, when my daughter was born I gave in and created my first Unicorn. But...if you notice the reflections you will find I still threw in a little twist.
11. The mermaid and the unicorn I think we all no matter what age, to a greater or lesser degree live with one foot in, and one foot out of the fantasy world.
12. Ocean Dreams When painting surrealism, many questions can be raised due to the surealistic nature of the subject. In this painting "Ocean Dreams" one might wonder this of the girl who has fallen asleep after reading: Is she laying comfortably in bed dreaming that she is at the beach ...or has she fallen asleep at the beach and is dreaming about being in her nice soft bed covered with a blanket?
13. The Calling This painting is about an adult fairy tale where romance calls in a most magical and surprising way.
14. On a Clear Day As they say, "On a clear day you can see forever" and I add to that, with a clear mind you can see and imagine all the beauty and emotions that you want.
15. Colorful World As a child I was always curious about colors. I wondered why there was a limited number of colors and what would new colors look like if there were more. I just couldn't picture any in my mind. Maybe that is why I became an artist. I have since come to the realization that all that is possible is the colors that are in the rainbow, which is really made up of only three basic colors; red, yellow and blue. The rest are just mixes and variations of those.
16. Above the Clouds While flying above the clouds on an airplane to Hawaii, with plenty of free time, I noticed that the clouds up there took on a strange shape of that to me looked like wild horses. I immediately said to myself "There's a new painting someday" So here it is...
18. Within the Pages Sometimes a good book will put you completely in another world
19. Beautiful Sadness There is a feeling that seems we all like to feel at times which I call "The Beautiful Sadness of it all". It is a sad feeling, usually associated with a love loss, but mixed with an inner confidence and strength that lets us know that somehow everything will turn out okay. We experience this feeling in some of the most popular movies, books, songs and in life. I think we enjoy this feeling because life has to have some challenge, even in romance, or we simply become bored even with the greatest of happiness. If you look close at the reflection of the woman you will see that she is actually happy, and the storm above her head is really a beautiful autumn tree, symbolizing the idea that everything really will turn out okay, if only you believe. This painting was inspired by a song composed by Russian pianist Oksana, who is working on a series of songs inspired by my art. (Oksana is also the model for this painting, fittingly enough. The model for the storm is Katrina, an actual shot as she was approaching New Orleans)
20. Love of Nature The theme for this painting is that Love Makes the World go around.
21. Eye of Mother Earth Recently I was sent a picture of a nebula in deep space, shot by the Hubble telescope which amazingly looked like an eye. It was called The Eye of God, obvious enough why. I decided to do a painting of this and while doing the sketch it occurred to me that I should do a pair of eyes, on two separate paintings. Mother Earth was the natural choice for the other eye as I feel that she, even though only existing symbolically, is the closest partner to God himself.
22. Eye of God The model for this painting was an actual photo of a nebula taken by the Hubble telescope in deep space. I did not alter it any way in order to make it appear more eye like. Coincidence? You figure.
23. Eye of the Storm Living in Florida for the past ten years has been a constant fear that during storm season this unstoppable, unpredictable monster with a human name will make it's way right into my neighborhood. So far it's decided to pass us by.
24. The Road Less Traveled Religious and spiritual beliefs are very important in this world but I think what is even more important is that we all have the freedom of choice in these beliefs.
25. Motherly Love Sometimes I think all this world really needs is simply a little old fashioned Motherly Love.
26. Rising Son Although I have a son who is now 12, he did not model for this painting, and has not yet complained to me about that fact.
27. Eagles Landing This painting was inspired by the unique beauty of Alaska. No, I have never been there but am preparing to go soon on a Princess Cruise art show tour. I am easily inspired by simply looking through a few books, a little internet research and a whole lot of imagination.
28. Wave in the Woods I set out to do a beautiful nature painting but could not decide between a forest or an ocean scene. I decided what the heck, I will combine the two. I consider this a rather "quirky" painting even for me as I am not even sure if it is surreal or not. Are there ever waves in the woods? Probably not but in my world there are no rules, anything goes.
30. Nature's finest Being a surrealist/fantasy artist, when I am undecided as to whether I should paint a forest or an ocean scene, it is totally acceptably for me, even expected of me to simply combine the two