LET'S GET REAL

Okay, for all of you spoil sports who don't like my (incredibly beautiful) AI generated images, I have some REAL art for you. Some real crappy art.

My long-time faithful blogger friends (all three of you) have already seen these, but I love reruns.

These are some pen & ink pictures that I drew in my creative youth - - around the ages of 18 to 20 or so. I did a lot of them, but most have disappeared.

Some of my drawings were published in literary magazines and a few other places (remember "Good Old Days" magazine?)

At an early age I came to the grim conclusion that I'm no artist, but it was an agreeable pastime.

This one was published in Good Old Days (I wonder if that magazine still exists)

Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924) 

Italian opera composer

I did this with brown ink, in the art nouveau style

 

Barbara la Marr (1896 - 1926) silent screen movie star

I think this was my very first pen and ink drawing

 

Modest Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881)

Russian composer

A woodcut that I did of the Titanic

Jon ❤️  artistically yours

P.S.

I'm not in the mood to give medical updates. There's nothing new to tell - - except I'm severely depressed and feel completely, hopelessly trapped. Blogging gets my muddled mind off of unpleasant things.

And there are a helluva lot of unpleasant things in my life.......

ANOTHER P.S.

I just noticed something about my woodcut. The Titanic had four smoke stacks, but only three worked. The fourth one was a dummy, only there for aesthetic reasons.

The Titanic on my woodcut has four working smoke stacks. I'm wondering if anyone noticed.

Jon    S.O.S.

MORE FROM MY GALLERY

This is a continuation of my previous post, in which I inflicted you with paintings from my private art collection.
Here are some more - -

 

An Alpine scene by Bachmann.
When I was living in Texas, I had this painting hanging over my bed. One night when I was sound asleep, it fell off the wall and hit me directly on the head. I don't know if it was an act of God or a ploy of Satan - - but it was a rude awakening and hurt like....... hell.

This is a rarity and one of my favorites - -
a superb pencil drawing entitled The Betrothal by the French artist Adrien Moreau (1843 - 1906). 
It is an original illustration for the book Quest of the Absolute by Honore de Balzac.

I don't remember what I initially paid for this, but it's undoubtedly worth a lot more now.

Two King Charles spaniels with a feathered hat. This delightful painting is by a German artist, circa 1885.
It's inspired by a painting by English artist Edwin Landseer (1802 - 1873).
The painting is in beautiful condition for an antique - it's hanging in my living room.

 

I purchased this painting solely because I liked the colors - - a sort of amber, autumnal tint.

My cat Bosco doesn't seem to have an interest in art.

Two original watercolors by the British artist John Sell Cotman (1782 - 1842).

A rather whimsical Italian painting of a boy smoking, circa 1885.

This is a painting of Mount Baldy (California) by an amature artist, dated 1870. I was intrigued by this because when my parents first moved to Southern California, we lived in the foothill of the mountains near Mount Baldy.

I can never resist cats. This painting is probably from the 1950s.

That's my cat Kitzee (sitting on the piano) who is now deceased. I miss her immensely.

This painting is hanging above one of my pianos (notice it on the above photo). It's a landscape from Vienna, circa 1905.
I was intrigued by the mountains in the background.

This painting of a 1920s auto is by the contemporary artist H. Hargrove. He was born in Italy in 1941 (his real name is Nicolo Sturiano). He was originally a wine merchant but began painting when he moved to America. His paintings of Americana are immensely popular.

I always wanted to have one of his paintings in my collection - - I purchased this at an auction.

A haunting moon-drenched night in Imperial Russia. The painting is old (1867) and somewhat faded - - but I couldn't resist.

What's this - - another cat? This painting is so old (around 1840) that the back of it is in need of major repair and I can't hang it.

Is this finally the end???
I've just done two blog posts "showcasing" my humble art collection - - and I hardly scratched the surface. I have enough art to open a museum.

Thanks for taking a look.          Jon

MY ADVENTURES IN ART

 Adventures?
Probably more like timid endeavors.

My three passions in life (the legal ones) were always music, writing, and art.
I'm a superb musician (which is a matter of opinion)
I learned how to cleverly manipulate the written word at an early age - using it to my full advantage.
My talent in art is minimal and has never inspired me to take it too seriously. The number of artists is vast and the competition is impossibly brutal.

As a child I did an enormous amount of drawing. I drew everything possible, including every day events that happened in our lives. I remember when I was five years old and our car had a flat tire (called a blow-out back then). I immediately drew a picture of my father fixing the flat.

My education in art was sparse. I studied with two artists privately and took one drawing class in college  (I strongly feel that this post will soon be getting long, so I'll cut to the chase).

When I was ten years old we lived in Pomona, California. At that time I enjoyed drawing with pastels and painting with water colors.

One day I was outside in our yard, painting a watercolor on an easel. An elderly gentleman was walking by and happened to see me. He thought I had talent and said that he was an artist and would be happy to teach me. He lived in the neighborhood.

His name was Mr. Battenburg, he was originally from Holland, studied art in Paris, and knew the famous artist Claude Monet.
When I went to Battenburg's house and saw his beautiful paintings, I was astounded. I remember him showing me a painting of a windmill that he did when he was sixteen. The date on it was 1903. That means he was probably born in 1887.

In astounding generosity, he gave me art lessons free of charge. I learned all about using oil paints, turpentine, and linseed oil, of which I previously had no knowledge. I also learned to paint on masonite, since he preferred it to canvas. He instructed me in the rudiments of drawing.
I couldn't have had a better teacher.

Unfortunately, my parents moved to Anaheim when I was eleven, so I (reluctantly) had to bid Mr. Battenburg farewell.
I don't think I ever knew his first name.

In Anaheim I briefly took lessons from an artist named Edwin Eliff, who had a studio on Lincoln Boulevard. He actually displayed some of my paintings in his studio window. Somebody wanted to buy one, but I greedily refused. My selfishness wouldn't let me part with the painting.

I never had any other lessons in art until I was about 20 or 21. I took a drawing class for two semesters when I was in college. My instructor was Bob Macintosh (spelling?) who was an illustrator for Walt Disney. He made art and drawing an extremely enjoyable experience.

Eventually my interest in painting waned and my concentration focused solely on music and writing.

Just for fun I began dabbling in pen and inks, which I found more preferable than oils or acrylics. Some of my pen and inks were published in literary magazines and journals.

Here are a few of my surviving efforts, which were done when I was in my early twenties.

This was published in Good Old Days magazine. I can't remember when.

Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924)

Silent screen star Barbara La Marr (1896 - 1926)

A rough sketch that I did for a western magazine. Not my best effort.

A wood block of the Titanic

Many of these were included in a post I did several years ago, which some of you might remember.        Jon

THROUGH THE EYES OF MARGARET KEANE

One of my blogger friends, Lady Caer Morganna, recently wrote a post on her blog For the Love of Cats that intrigued me. It was about one of her favorite artists, Puerto Rican-born Cyra R. Cancel, who creates fantasy cat art. Cancel's lovely paintings of wide-eyed cats suddenly reminded me of the wide-eyed Keane paintings.

Cyra R. Cancel    (link)  

The unique and intriguing Keane paintings of children and animals were immensely popular in the 1960s. When I was about twelve or thirteen I had four Keane cat posters hanging in my bedroom.

At that time, it was universally assumed that the paintings were done by an artist named Walter Keane.
It wasn't until many years later that I did some research and learned the truth.

Walter Keane never painted the pictures. They were all created by his wife Margaret. The story is long and intricate, but I'll try to condense.

Peggy Hawkins (Margaret's birth-name) was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1927. A botched mastoid operation damaged one of her eardrums and left her partially deaf. She became fascinated with painting at an early age. She attended classes at the Watkins Institute in Nashville and later studied art at the Traphaugen School of Design in New York City. By the mid-1950s she began a career as a portrait painter.

Her first marriage to Frank Ulbrich produced a daughter but ended in divorce. In 1955 Margaret became smitten by a suave, charming real estate agent named Walter Keane. They were quickly married in Honolulu.

It wasn't long before Walter began taking an uncanny interest in Margaret's paintings. He eventually abandoned real estate and began promoting, exhibiting, and selling his wife's paintings throughout the United States.

There was one major issue that Margaret initially knew nothing about: 
Her husband was promoting her paintings as his own. According to him, the artist was Walter Keane.

At that time in her life, Margaret was timid and withdrawn. When she finally discovered what her husband was doing, she remained silent due to his bullying and constant threats.

She finally divorced Walter in 1964 and eventually summoned the courage to go on a radio show and announce that she was the real creator of the paintings.

A reporter from the San Francisco Examiner arranged a public "paint-out" between Margaret and Walter in Union Square.
Walter never showed up.

In 1982 Margaret Keane sued Walter and USA Today in federal court for an article claiming that Walter was the real artist.

The judge ordered Margaret and Walter to create a painting in the courtroom to determine who was the real artist. 

Walter declined, claiming he had a sore shoulder. Margaret produced an impressive painting in less than an hour. She won the case and was awarded four million dollars.

Margaret never got the money, but stated that all she really wanted was to establish the fact that she was the real artist ( a federal appeals court upheld the defamation verdict but overturned the $4 million damage award).

Margaret Keane is still alive and painting today at age 94. She lives in Napa County, California with her daughter and son-in-law.

Keane's paintings reached a peak of popularity in the 1960s. At that time her artistic output consisted mostly of children and animals with the trademark uncanny wide eyes. 
Unique, mesmerizing, mysterious - - sometimes almost creepy. 
Margaret eventually expanded her artistic repertoire and minimized the ubiquitous hypnotic eyes in her portraits.
Her work is still popular, especially with collectors.

Margaret Keane

 

This is one of the cat posters I used to have. Don't know whatever happened to it.

 Numerous celebrities commissioned Keane to paint their portraits. This is one she did of Joan Crawford.

Margaret Keane in later years