Sunflower Looking Forward is a positive interpretation of the person that looks to the future with hope and optimism seeing all the beautiful possibilities life holds. It is a nature painting full of hope and great expectation full of passionate love.

The colors and technique I chose to support the theme of a beautiful future for those that look ahead with optimistic hope founded in truth. Certainly, the future holds the unknown but we have reason to look to the future knowing the best is yet to come. We have hope in one greater than the circumstances we face. We know the One that has already determined the outcome. His name is Jesus Christ upon whom all the cares of the world rest in unsuppressed hope that the future will shine bright for all that call upon His holy name.

This is one of my total palette knife art pieces. First, I believe the looseness and freshness of palette knife work is incredibly beautiful. Second, it is a major teacher to the artist of what is most important in a work of art teaching the artist what to leave out and what to emphasize. Third, it is the most fun technique that I use. Lastly, it is for my customers that enjoy the thick stokes of colors and buttery blends with impressionistic creative realism that doesn’t skimp on execution.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by Boyd Greene Fine Art and I look forward to hearing from you.

I am not interested in color for color’s sake and light for light’s sake. I am interested in them as means of expression.”     Robert Henri

Dalton Tulip is a gorgeous little tulip that I photographed and sketched a few years back while in Dalton, Georgia. There is a nice little park off Walnut Avenue where I found many of these tulips surrounding a gazebo. I just loved their colors. I believe tulips to be one of the most beautiful flowers in God’s great and awesome creation. Yet their life is as brief as it usually goes with beautiful things. There seems to be such brevity of time for beautiful things.

The sketch lay in my studio for a long time calling out for me to paint it, but I kept closed ears. Well, I could not ignore its pleas any longer so I gazed upon the reference photos I had taken and compared them to the sketch I had made. I liked the tones I had mapped out in my sketch so I left it alone. A well laid out plan is most advantageous to me when I start a painting. If I skip this most important step, it costs me dearly in time lost later on. Time that I thought I had saved mounts up into heaps of waste as I try to work out problems created by negligence in skipped steps.

Therefore, my plan helped me to rapidly get my rhythm going and bring this painting to closure quickly. This is profitable in many ways. I love it when this happens. I love it when I am able to connect with my subject and to put it down in just a few strokes. It is an awesome feeling to be able to interpret a subject realistically in an impressionistic thought-centered and bonded together single-minded theme using Creative Realism. It gives a painting a sense of freshness and vitality. It keeps it from looking overworked. It gives the painting a soft delicate look that works well for such a subject as the tulip that is a soft beauty.

These simple little lively beauties were truly a pleasure to paint. As I painted wet into wet, with the background moving along well, the colors for the flower petals came to me. I painted very few hard edges and many soft edges simplifying shapes to lead your eye around the painting. I paid attention to the directional lines, which are so important in this painting being careful not to under emphasize them and subdued any lines that I felt took away from them.

To me, tulips are simple beauties that signal the arrival of Spring a refreshing time for all to enjoy.

It is extremely important to me that my paintings reveal a simple beauty that a small child would love and appreciate. No greater compliment could I have than for a small child to say, “Well done!” That is the greatest compliment I could ever have.

“… perhaps one of the most valuable things for the painter to study is economy, which is necessary in every phase of life, almost the most valuable asset a man can possess. But in painting especially, a man should learn to select from all experience, not only from his own but from that of all ages, essential beauty. He should learn through wisdom to gather for his work only the vital and express that with the keenest delight and emotion.”     Robert Henri

Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to consider this Creative Realism painting by artist Boyd Greene. I would like to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful ladies out there that have made the world a better place to live.

The Two Tulips is one of my fun all palette knife oil paintings. I really have a blast doing palette knife paintings watching the fat buttery oil paint mix together making amazing hues that rivet my attention. Color amazes me to no end. 

Palette knife painting is one of my greatest teachers helping me to understand what is truly important about a painting, the big shapes that form the whole. It really teaches an artist to see the simple beauty of a subject. You have to see the big forms to paint with a palette knife. Structure is of supreme importance.

These two tulips are more from my mother’s flower beds. They were growing close to an old oak that inspired the rough background you see behind them. I think the rough background contrasts well with the softness of a tulip’s blossom. Tulips are one of my favorite flowers that are unspeakably beautiful for a brief time signaling the arrival of spring and an outpouring of so much beauty throughout the new season.

Thank you for stopping by Boyd Greene Fine Art for a browse and make sure to sign up for my newsletter to stay up to date with upcoming events before anyone else knows.

Thank you everyone for dropping by Boyd Greene Fine Art to see Warner Park Roses a Creative Realism oil painting in its completion. It is a great honor to have you participate with me as we journey along looking for revealing and hidden treasures of beauty. 

This is another painting from the rose garden that once flourished at Warner Park in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A number of those roses were rare and donated by various people. Many were award winning designer roses having won national and international awards. Sadly they have fallen to progress’s march forward and a huge drainage basin dominates the landscape they once graced with beauty and color every summer.

As those of you know who have been around awhile this painting has taken on many faces. Warner Park Roses was a painting that I struggled to make into something that it was not. I relented by going back and painting it just as it was. Keep It Simple Smart Boyd! Don’t go overboard. Just paint what is there! I’ll never learn! 

I struggled with whether or not these colors would work well together but I think it worked out well.

Thank you everyone for stopping by Boyd Greene Fine Art.

"Life can mean nothing worth meaning, unless its prime aim is the doing of duty, the achievement of results worth achieving.”

                                                                    -Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy later said, “After all, the saddest thing that can happen to a man is to carry no burdens. To be bent under too great a load is bad; to be crushed by it is lamentable; but even in that, there are possibilities that are glorious. But to carry no load at all — there is nothing in that. No one seems to arrive at any goal really worth reaching in this world who does not come to it heavy laden.”

Royal Lineage Whitetail Deer is a fine art oil portrait of one of the most regal of all animals. Just their stature gives you a sense of their royalty.

Their ability to evade trouble in a split second going from standing still to full throttle away from harm is symbolic of a leader’s ability to avoid entangling circumstances. They can reach speeds of up to 36 miles per hour.

The buck is more of a social animal than the doe most of the year, forming a hierarchal dominance tier which changes often and disbands shortly before the rut begins. The beginning of rut is marked by bucks losing the velvet on their horns and increased sparring for dominance. During breeding season a buck tries to dominate other bucks.

A crown fit for a king they wear with great pride, holding it high and regally often with a gleaming stare at competitors. It also blends extremely well in the woods as a tree like structure. A buck’s antlers have the main beam jutting forward and several unbranched tines behind with a small brow tine. The antler spread can be as much as three feet giving the whitetail a crown indeed. They use their crown to make rubs, polished oblong scars left on sections of trees, bushes, and saplings low to the ground; made when a buck lowers his antlers to rub against a bush to mark territory. A buck leaves his scent on these rubs through glandular secretions. This buck was a seven pointer and had some big rubs (yes I added a few tines) that marked his domain well. Well-used trails are easy to spot as they are wore down considerably with tracks, broken twigs and bare spots. They are often spotted around my area out grazing with the animals on the farms of North Georgia.

The color of a whitetail varies in summer when their coat can be a tan or reddish brown and in winter a grayish brown. I photographed this buck in late October and it still had a lot of reddish brown which I emphasized in the painting to make him pop off the background as he is gradually revealed from his atmospheric surroundings.

Bucks as large as this one definitely protect their territory as any king would his realm challenging all comers. 

In true chiaroscuro fashion this whitetail dramatically comes off the page revealing a regal carriage and demeanor. Even the background color was chosen to heighten the royal appearance of this grand animal having traces of Ultramarine Violet. I often get such great enjoyment from watching these gorgeous animals close to my home. My creative realism technique is well suited to paintings of this size. The drama just drips from the painting allowing the viewer to gain some new perspective each and every time they view it.

Royal Lineage Whitetail Deer was designed to hold a person’s attention riveted to the painting. Just as he rises up off the painting he sinks into it blending into his surroundings subtly and softly. The blended edges lead your eye around keeping you attracted to this grand portrait of royalty.

Some information used in this blog can be found in the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mammals by John O. Whitaker, Jr. (1998).

Thank you for stopping by for a browse at Boyd Greene Fine Art and my first email newsletter will be going out this weekend as The Weekend Nature Lover News.