Paul Cumes

25,000 yr old realism

2012-02-04T03:59:00.001-08:00

Just read an interesting article. One of those art-meets-science situations. Maybe a little over-analytical as these things tend to be but interesting nevertheless. I remember one time reading an article where some chemists were trying to prove that van Gogh used the colors he used because he had some condition in his brain or something..anyway it is another topic but still a good example of when strict scientists try to figure out where art comes from and they end up sounding kind of silly. This article is cool for another reason and that is because the scientists were like "Well I'll be darned those spotted horses did exist!" Of interest is the mention that perhaps many cave paintings do not have the transcendental meaning or intention behind them that is often attributed to them. That might be true but that doesnt mean much of the art isnt the result of a trance or psychotropic drug. Fact is one never knows where art comes from. It is a mystery and that is part of the magic. Be it a 25,000 yr old painting or a Picasso, the process is usually a mystery. Even in my art, I show the process in my videos, but you still never know where the art comes from.

January 2012

2012-01-28T05:27:00.000-08:00

Some of the art from Jan '12

Brothel Token

2012-01-26T08:07:00.000-08:00

Check out this ancient coin.

Sleeping Subjects

2012-01-22T07:13:00.000-08:00

I was admiring the Freud painting and it reminded me of this van Gogh a little bit..let's take a gander at them both at the same time why dont we..

Another great piece of art

2012-01-19T05:24:00.000-08:00

made by my artist pal Bob Mask

Fish Paste !

2012-01-19T05:22:00.001-08:00

I grew up eating this stuff for breakfast! It sure is yummy :)

Bushido

2012-01-09T06:23:00.001-08:00

December 2011 artwork

2011-12-31T06:13:00.001-08:00

Aphrodite

2011-12-25T05:11:00.000-08:00

Nice sculpture of Aphrodite from the Cyprus Museum

Nude Oil on Paper

2011-12-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

70 min painting

Oil on Paper

December 2011

St Mary's Church

2011-12-13T09:26:00.000-08:00

I've been noticing this cool looking church down the street from my place, and I decided to do a painting of it. I like the composition of the hill and the building from the rear view. I also like that Gothic look of the Orthodox church (religion and everything aside) and their neat looking crosses.

It was (and is still) too darn cold to set up for plein air painting. I suppose I could do it but my days of painting in extreme weather are pretty much over..sure they were fun while they lasted (and boy do i have some good stories and great paintings from doing so) but with age comes wisdom and I have no desire to freeze to death for art. SO that is why I went down there, took a photo, and came back to paint.. check out the video of the process HERE.

November 2011 artwork

2011-12-01T06:06:00.001-08:00

Visit my youtube channel to see how all of these paintings were made!

Happy Holidays

2011-11-27T07:06:00.001-08:00

party time

Consume

2011-11-27T07:02:00.000-08:00

Here is some wacky art my friend drew on a package that he sent me. Little did he know I would take a photo of it and put it on my blog.

Ocean Beach

2011-11-02T10:59:00.001-07:00

Just saw this pic online. It brought back memories as I used to live right there in the Sunset district of San Francisco..when the waves are big at Ocean Beach it looks like this ^ and it is epic. I love SF that city is amazing.

Some October 2011 artwork

2011-10-31T09:28:00.001-07:00

RISD Museum

2011-10-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

Art History

2011-10-14T07:20:00.000-07:00

Art History Timeline

By Jesse Wilder

Art Periods/ Movements	Characteristics	Chief Artists and Major Works	Historical Events
Stone Age (30,000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)	Cave painting, fertility goddesses, megalithic structures	Lascaux Cave Painting, Woman of Willendorf, Stonehenge	Ice Age ends (10,000 b.c.–8,000 b.c.); New Stone Age and first permanent settlements (8000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)
Mesopotamian (3500 b.c.–539 b.c.)	Warrior art and narration in stone relief	Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi's Code	Sumerians invent writing (3400 b.c.); Hammurabi writes his law code (1780 b.c.); Abraham founds monotheism
Egyptian (3100 b.c.–30 b.c.)	Art with an afterlife focus: pyramids and tomb painting	Imhotep, Step Pyramid, Great Pyramids, Bust of Nefertiti	Narmer unites Upper/Lower Egypt (3100 b.c.); Rameses II battles the Hittites (1274 b.c.); Cleopatra dies (30 b.c.)
Greek and Hellenistic (850 b.c.–31 b.c.)	Greek idealism: balance, perfect proportions; architectural orders(Doric, Ionic, Corinthian)	Parthenon, Myron, Phidias, Polykleitos, Praxiteles	Athens defeats Persia at Marathon (490 b.c.); Peloponnesian Wars (431 b.c.–404 b.c.); Alexander the Great's conquests (336 b.c.–323 b.c.)
Roman (500 b.c.– a.d. 476)	Roman realism: practical and down to earth; the arch	Augustus of Primaporta, Colosseum, Trajan's Column, Pantheon	Julius Caesar assassinated (44 b.c.); Augustus proclaimed Emperor (27 b.c.); Diocletian splits Empire (a.d. 292); Rome falls (a.d. 476)
Indian, Chinese, and Japanese(653 b.c.–a.d. 1900)	Serene, meditative art, and Arts of the Floating World	Gu Kaizhi, Li Cheng, Guo Xi, Hokusai, Hiroshige	Birth of Buddha (563 b.c.); Silk Road opens (1st century b.c.); Buddhism spreads to China (1st–2nd centuries a.d.) and Japan (5th century a.d.)
Byzantine and Islamic (a.d. 476–a.d.1453)	Heavenly Byzantine mosaics; Islamic architecture and amazing maze-like design	Hagia Sophia, Andrei Rublev, Mosque of Córdoba, the Alhambra	Justinian partly restores Western Roman Empire (a.d. 533–a.d. 562); Iconoclasm Controversy (a.d. 726–a.d. 843); Birth of Islam (a.d. 610) and Muslim Conquests (a.d. 632–a.d. 732)
Middle Ages (500–1400)	Celtic art, Carolingian Renaissance, Romanesque, Gothic	St. Sernin, Durham Cathedral, Notre Dame, Chartres, Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto	Viking Raids (793–1066); Battle of Hastings (1066); Crusades I–IV (1095–1204); Black Death (1347–1351); Hundred Years' War (1337–1453)
Early and High Renaissance (1400–1550)	Rebirth of classical culture	Ghiberti's Doors, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael	Gutenberg invents movable type (1447); Turks conquer Constantinople (1453); Columbus lands in New World (1492); Martin Luther starts Reformation (1517)
Venetian and Northern Renaissance (1430–1550)	The Renaissance spreads north- ward to France, the Low Countries, Poland, Germany, and England	Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Dürer, Bruegel, Bosch, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden	Council of Trent and Counter-Reformation (1545–1563); Copernicus proves the Earth revolves around the Sun (1543
Mannerism (1527–1580)	Art that breaks the rules; artifice over nature	Tintoretto, El Greco, Pontormo, Bronzino, Cellini	Magellan circumnavigates the globe (1520–1522)
Baroque (1600–1750)	Splendor and flourish for God; art as a weapon in the religious wars	Reubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Palace of Versailles	Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants (1618–1648)
Neoclassical (1750–1850)	Art that recaptures Greco-Roman grace and grandeur	David, Ingres, Greuze, Canova	Enlightenment (18th century); Industrial Revolution (1760–1850)
Romanticism (1780–1850)	The triumph of imagination and individuality	Caspar Friedrich, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner, Benjamin West	American Revolution (1775–1783); French Revolution (1789–1799); Napoleon crowned emperor of France (1803)
Realism (1848–1900)	Celebrating working class and peasants; en plein air rustic painting	Corot, Courbet, Daumier, Millet	European democratic revolutions of 1848
Impressionism (1865–1885)	Capturing fleeting effects of natural light	Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cassatt, Morisot, Degas	Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871); Unification of Germany (1871)
Post-Impressionism (1885–1910)	A soft revolt against Impressionism	Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Seurat	Belle Époque (late-19th-century Golden Age); Japan defeats Russia (1905)
Fauvism and Expressionism (1900–1935)	Harsh colors and flat surfaces (Fauvism); emotion distorting form	Matisse, Kirchner, Kandinsky, Marc	Boxer Rebellion in China (1900); World War (1914–1918)
Cubism, Futurism, Supremativism, Constructivism, De Stijl (1905–1920)	Pre– and Post–World War 1 art experiments: new forms to express modern life	Picasso, Braque, Leger, Boccioni, Severini, Malevich	Russian Revolution (1917); American women franchised (1920)
Dada and Surrealism(1917–1950)	Ridiculous art; painting dreamsand exploring the unconscious	Duchamp, Dalí, Ernst, Magritte,de Chirico, Kahlo	Disillusionment after World War I; The Great Depression (1929–1938); World War II (1939–1945) and Nazi horrors; atomic bombs dropped on Japan (1945)
Abstract Expressionism (1940s–1950s) and Pop Art (1960s)	Post–World War II: pure abstraction and expression without form; popular art absorbs consumerism	Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein	Cold War and Vietnam War (U.S. enters 1965); U.S.S.R. suppresses Hungarian revolt (1956) Czechoslovakian revolt (1968)
Postmodernism and Deconstructivism (1970– )	Art without a center and reworking and mixing past styles	Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Anselm Kiefer, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid	Nuclear freeze movement; Cold War fizzles; Communism collapses in Eastern Europe and U.S.S.R. (1989–1991)

Mikey Welsh

2011-10-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

Painting Sunday

2011-10-10T07:27:00.001-07:00

Had an awesome day of painting yesterday..

some Sept. 2011 art

2011-10-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

Cyrus E Dallin Museum

2011-09-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

While we were in Arlington the other day, we visited a small museum filled with historical American sculpture from the area. I thought some of the work was pretty cool. This was my favorite piece actually..of course I am partial to curvy female nudes!

you can see more here: http://dallin.org/

Jim Henson exhibit New York

2011-09-12T02:34:00.001-07:00

I was never particularly a fan of Kermit until I went to this exhibit, but now I appreciate the famous frog.

We went to the Jim Henson exhibit at The Museum of the Moving Image in New York yesterday. It was amazing. The whole museum is very very cool but this particular exhibit just blew me away. I almost did not go but my friends and wife reassured me it would be good and they certainly were right. I am glad I listened to them. Sometimes I get cranky and in my hermit-like nature I dont want to try anything new or go anywhere exciting but usually when I do I discover that it was worth it! This was one of those times.

JIm Henson was a total genius. I always knew about the Muppets and his other famous projects but I had no clue how much cool stuff that guy did in his life that most people do not even know about. That to me is always the sign of a great artist and a great art show, when you find the earlier work to be even more amazing than the mainstream stuff.

Here is one of the hilarious commercials he worked on. It was almost postmodern in the way he mocked the contemporary advertisement of his day..but I dont want to get too analytical. Suffice to say it is just awesome.

more here

His short film "Time Piece" was a mind-blowing masterpiece way ahead of its time. Seeing it projected on a big wall in full length was a real treat. There is a 2 min cropped version on youtube here.

"It all ends in one of two ways: either someone gets eaten or something blows up."
— Jim Henson

It is amazing to me how the techniques he used were often very simple but so funny and well-directed. It is no wonder he brought so many wonderful things into the world thru his art. At the core of it all was his love for puppetry, which is not something you hear about every day. He loved cartooning and there were even some very well executed drawings of trees and a watercolor landscape painting too. He obviously managed to maintain his childlike nature despite growing up and this fueled the genius of the various art forms that he explored. Many of his ideas never came to any grand conclusion and many of his proposals for shows were rejected..and in this way he is an inspiration to all artists and people that one must never give up trying. He had a quote that went something like "never give up. never give up. never give up" I cant remember it exactly but it was in relation to submitting work for shows to producers.

Anyway, I love it when you find out more about an artist that had such a big impact on your life..and the crazy thing is that i never really realized it. I didnt know the significance of his influence upon my own subconscious and how much of our great American culture stemmed directly from this amazing guy. Those two sentences didnt really make sense but you know what I mean. The whole museum was great as well, and it reminded me of how much wonderful culture there is in the USA and how cool the different contributions of the image/film industry have been for the human race, and that is no hyperbole. It was presented from a visual perspective so as an artist I really got into it..it wasnt just some movie museum that you might find in Hollywood or something.

I could go on and on about it, in fact the whole two day (very spontaneous) excursion to New York (on 9-11-11) is really deserving of a big blog entry in itself.. Cimmi took a bunch of pictures and video too (she was experimenting on the iphone with all kinds of cool stop motion apps and stuff) but I will just post a fraction of the photos here and give you a sampler platter glimpse of what the experience was like...oh and by the way, we were not allowed to take photos in the Jim Henson part of the museum show so that is why there is no documentation of it :( I understand why of course...but it rankles my ire that I, in general, will never be able to recreate how wonderful this experience was here on this blog..(sigh) oh well.

what better way to start the day than with a parking ticket!... $115 (ouch!) thanks NYC

photography by cimmi

our friend's apartment building

driving in new york is crazy

cimmi shopping in Williamsburg

light art

groovy installation

they had a bunch of old school video games you could play- the whole thing was like a blast from our childhood

me as Indiana Jones

an old makeup poster.. photo by cimmi

old timey cameras

cimmi in the jim henson exhibit-she has loved puppets forever, and miss piggy!

explanation of "time piece", my favorite part of the day

"time piece" wacky part where henson is painting the pink elephant

me infront of "time piece" (yet another wacky part where Henson is eating, lol so funny!)

----------------------

It is sad he died so early :( thanks for the inspiration Jim!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Henson

Sand Storm Wave

2011-09-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

A really awesome photo by Clark Little

August 2011 artwork

2011-08-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

(oil paintings from New England)

Smiley Face Grafitti

2011-08-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed just how many smiley faces there are spray painted everywhere? I guess it is one of the most basic impulses.. that is in the mind of the person with the spray paint can.. their thinking might be something like: "what should I paint? I think I will paint a smiley face!"

I started noticing this phenomenon a few years ago when my cousin took a photo of a goofy looking smiley face that had been spray painted on a cement sphere at the top of a pillar somewhere. Since then I have noticed an untold number of them. Each one has its own personality. I recently saw another one the other day and decided to take a photo of it. I think I am going to photo smiley faces whenever I see them, and build up a collection. It might take a long time, and I might lose interest in this idea, but let's get this thing started. Here is the one I saw in Boston the other day.

Insane Wave

2011-08-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

just look at this thing....holy f'n sh*t!!

Bruce Irons in Tahiti

BJJ Champ

2011-08-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

me and Gabe Gonzaga

Egon Schiele

2011-08-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

His expression looks like one of his paintings, doesnt it?
Photograph by Anton Josef Trcka.

"Art cannot be modern. Art is primordially eternal."

-Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele (1890 - 1918)

I've probably blogged about Egon a couple times before but here I go again..I found this quote on some website and thought it was brilliant. Then I stole some more information from a couple other websites, edited it a bit, and posted it below for your enjoyment. Now that is what blogging is all about!

Schiele was born in the city of Tulln, Austria. At the age of just 15 years old Schiele's father died of syphilis and Egon Schiele's custody was granted to his uncle who recognized and was a proponent of Schiele's artistic talent. At the age of 16 Schiele applied at Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, Austria where Gustav Klimt had also studied.

Shortly after his arrival to his new school, Schiele was transferred to a different school the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. There he studied drawing and painting but felt suffocated by the school’s conservative nature.

In 1907, Schiele sought out Gustav Klimt who was a role model for the young artist. Gustav Klimt was said to have encouraged Schiele by buying his drawings and providing him with opportunities. Klimt invited Schiele to exhibit his work at the 1909 Vienna Kunstschau, where Schiele encountered the works of Edvard Munch. At this point in time Shiele's work began to flourish and he began to explore, not only the human form and sexuality with his work. To some his art would considered shocking but captured the publics interest.

In April 1912 he was arrested for seducing a young girl below the age of consent. When the police came to his studio to place him under arrest they seized more than one hundred drawings which they considered pornographic. Schiele was imprisoned but soon after the charges of seduction and abduction were dropped yet the young artist was found guilty of exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible to children. He was sentenced to only 24 days imprisonment. During the time that Schiele spent in prison he created a series paintings depicting the emotions he felt from his imprisonment.

Schiele was married in 1915. In 1918 he was invited to the Secession's 49th exhibition. Schiele had more then forty works displayed in the exhibition. The exhibit was a major success for the artist created a great deal of recognition for the artist. Later that year the Spanish flu epidemic claimed both the lives of Egon and his pregnant wife Edith. He died three days after his wife.

Check out this self-portrait from 1914

..and have a peek at this famous painting (of his 17 yr old muse): "Portrait of Wally" -1912

3 Fat Cats at Night

2011-08-16T06:50:00.001-07:00

quick painting i did last night for fun..

video here

Slater Mill, Pawtucket

2011-08-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

This weekend some friends came up from NYC and we took the tour at the famous Slater Mill located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

The Slater Mill, named after Samuel Slater, is the birthplace of the industrial textile revolution in the USA. It is an awesome bit of history only a few blocks away from our apartment. The tour guide was very good. I even got a chance to ask her about ghosts and she, with help from her husband (as he chewed on his lunch sandwich), regaled us with a couple really good ghost stories. In fact the television show "ghost hunters" recently did a feature there and he was interviewed for it. Suffice it to say all of these old mills are really haunted! That is no surprise to us as some of you might remember me writing about our experiences since living here in this renovated mill this year.

Anyway, the other amazing thing is the industrial textile machinery that was invented and elaborated upon in the mills in order to meet the needs of the ever booming industry of the era. The people who invented these machines were ordinary geniuses, if I can call them that, in that they were regular folk who managed to invent the most mind-bending array of equipment. If you consider the time they were made, these fascinating machines were no less sophisticated than this computer I am writing on..and it all depended on iron work, machining, woodwork and organization of the highest order. Sadly throughout the tour there is an inevitable theme of horrendous working conditions (fingers getting chopped off, legs and arms crushed, disease, endless work hours..that sort of thing), slavery (the cotton all came from the south) and brutal child labor, but it added a dose of reality to the visual stimulation of the place. I highly recommend this tour if you are ever in the area, or you can find more information about the textile mill revolution yourself online.

Heck I dont know if any of you will find this as interesting as I do. I dont even know why I think it is so fascinating. Maybe it is the fact that the modern world has forgotten all about the kind of toil it took to get to where we are today. Kids today are lucky they dont have to slave away in the mill for 12 hrs a day, instead they just play video games all day, complain, and talk back to their parents. Indeed there was a price to be paid for progress, but maybe that insane toil was good for the American spirit. Just look at how these days everyone whines about being depressed and unfulfilled. I have a feeling that if you were working in this environment you didnt have time to be depressed. You were either useful, or you were disposed of. Anyway that is just my off-the-cuff social commentary about it all.

I cannot try and match the quality of the information she presented to us, so just take a look at the photos I took and let your imagination do the rest. Finally I will say it was really cool because she even fired up a few of the machines which ran perfectly and gave you a fascinating and intimidating feeling for what it was like to maybe work in one of these places.

See a quick video bite I did of the tour HERE.

Downtown Providence

2011-08-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

We went downtown the other day and checked out a local arts and craft show. Having spent years at similar shows, I was relieved to be casually attending the show rather than selling at one. It is tough sitting there all day, talking to people and hoping that sales will be good, although it can be fun and rewarding when you do sell. I was surprised to see only a few painters (even though it was a small show) and the ones that were there were not terribly good. Maybe the reason why the show was so small has something to do with the economy.. Im not sure. Providence is a great city full of amazing buildings, but other than a couple really hip and cool areas, it seems to be sort of empty. I think the local economy is kind of bad (though some would not admit that) and this fact has not been helped by the crooked politicians that run the show here.

Anyway, as I was strolling about I took a few photos. I like this one of Cimmi (which she enhanced with her photo app.) and these ones of some cool stone sculptures in front of a building. Sorry but I dont know who the sculptor is or what these are about.. I suppose I could do some research but Im too lazy. Feel free to let me know any details about them..

I am a big fan of stone sculpture. I have done a bit of it myself..and would love to really dedicate time to doing some more..but I would need to find a place where I can pick the art up again, as it requires a lot of space and resources...

cimmi in the city..

Color Wheel

2011-08-05T21:43:00.000-07:00

Color is an intuitive thing at the end of the day, so this stuff is not entirely necessary to know.. but it is helpful and sure is interesting from a scientific point of view. Plus, if you don't have the intuitive ability it will help you learn about painting. However, I have known painters that knew everything about color theory and still couldn't paint to save their life. I would say you can learn more just from looking at paintings by the masters (like Matisse and van Gogh) than you ever would by studying this stuff!

The Color Wheel was originally invented by Issac Newton. He was one smart guy.

internet overload

2011-08-05T09:50:00.001-07:00

i think im online too much.. i need a wilderness vacation :l

A few self portraits..

2011-08-01T18:59:00.001-07:00

Here are just a few self portraits from the past 5 yrs or so...

there are a lot more than this but i dont feel like digging them all out right now.

July 2011 paintings

2011-07-30T05:54:00.001-07:00

Summer Fruit

2011-07-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

Ive been really into still life painting lately...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlJiBubkRAc&feature=channel_video_title

I will have all my July 2011 art uploaded here and on my website very soon, so please stay tuned...

Lucian Freud (1923-2011)

2011-07-23T17:43:00.000-07:00

"I would wish my art to appear factual, not literal."

"I remember everything I've done because it was done with difficulty."

Studio

2011-07-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

Cool Aztec Art

2011-07-06T16:49:00.001-07:00

I found myself reading about the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica this evening and ended up looking at a few images posted online of Aztec artwork. I thought it was really amazing stuff. Almost modern looking in a lot of ways. Anyway i thought it was cool and decided to post it. Maybe I will look into more of this, it is pretty fascinating. You know the Mayans had some pretty trippy art too. Having been to Peru I already know that the Incas had some amazing arts and crafts and of course stonework.. the Incas were really good goldsmiths as Im sure most of these peoples were. I need to learn more about it. Too bad that most of the art history Im interested in is written in such a boring way..maybe there is someone out there that makes it interesting..or maybe I should just look at the images of this type stuff on google for a spell and absorb them into my brain. Yeah that is the best way, just visually download the image of the piece into my artbrain and digest it there subconsciously, learn its secrets the intuitive way.. the way real artists do it.

Trip To Homer Studio

2011-07-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

On a google inspired whim, we jumped in the car and tried to go to Winslow Homer's Studio today..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEBGonuyaP4

June Artwork

2011-06-30T06:39:00.001-07:00

Mr. Potato Head

2011-06-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

Robert Henri Museum!

2011-06-07T04:26:00.001-07:00

..Our gracious host, Earl ^

So yesterday we are in the midst of our journey, galavanting across the USA on our way to the east coast and Cimmi's new job, and outta nowhere, in the middle of Nebraska, we see a highway sign for the Robert Henri Museum. It was funny because I had just been talking about the great Robert Henri to my wife about two hours before. I was trying to remember a quote (for a possible blog entry) from the famous book The Art Spirit where Henri talks about how every painter, even the great painters, will paint a lot of bad paintings and the key is not to worry about it and just keep on painting. I was trying to recount the quote to Cimmi but I couldnt remember it. It was something like "Out of every 10 paintings you do, only a few of them will be any good at best, so dont worry about making a bad painting". This was GREAT advice for me as a young painter, and if you are a painter I strongly suggest you take this advice and read Henri's book. This book was a huge influence in my development as a painter.

I have blogged about Henri before and you can see that here.

Go to the Robert Henri Museum site for the most accurate information on his family etc.

Henri was a famous painter and art teacher, which is a pretty rare thing. He was known as a great portrait painter from the ashcan era of the Art Student's League I think it was. Not sure. This is a great period in American Art History. The cool thing about Henri is that he was a teacher that painters could really understand.

Anyway check out that link to Henri for more info..he is a huge influence on me but I dont know that much about him. Well, I know a bit more after this wonderful and serendipitous visit to the museum. The place was actually closed when we got there. It was about 90 degrees outside and we had 3 cats waiting in the car with the air conditioning on. I had to call a number written on the door to get ahold of Earl who I then had to ask if he would mind coming down to the musuem and opening it up for us as it was closed on Mondays. Luckily this is the high season or something, and even though we were only 2 of us, he was gracious enough to come on down to open her up for us there in downtown Cozad, Nebraska.

One interesting fact I learned is that Henri's dad was a very talented gambler (a Faro dealer) and a wild man who was chased out of town (the town that he founded) for shooting a man. It might have been an act of self-defense, you will have to do the research. He then had to flee east to pursue more gambling. The family changed their names around and evaded the law. It sounded like an exciting and perfect childhood for a painter, and it sounds like though they got in a lot of trouble, they always had some money around, which would explain why Henri had the time to get so good at realistic aspects of portrait painting. He could afford to wander around and paint. In his life Henri lived in NYC, France and Ireland in the final days. I would like to read more about it. They had a book for sale at the museum, but i ended up buying a DVD and a plastic visor that says "The Robert Henri Museum" on it. I cant wait to watch the DVD.

So this was all a very cool and cosmic coincidence for me, stumbling upon the Robert Henri Museum in Nebraska on our way across America!

Here is the MOVIE about the visit on youtube.

You can see my affection for Henri in this painting I did in 2004, shortly after reading the book:

Robert Henri Museum site

some May 2011 art

2011-05-25T19:18:00.001-07:00

Sunrise (Oil on Paper)

2011-05-17T08:10:00.001-07:00

I made a video of this sunrise painting but accidentally erased it on my computer. Oh well! Maybe I wont be so quick to hit "delete originals" next time Im uploading in iPhoto...

Museum memory..

2011-05-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

Here we have an old souvenir from my trip to Amsterdam around 10 yrs ago..i was reminded of it just now by an artist friend who is on her way to visit the van Gogh museum this week. That place is awesome. I would love to return someday and melt my brain looking at some of those pictures. Looks like they have some great stuff going on there NOW too.

chat noir

2011-05-08T04:57:00.001-07:00

April 2011 Paintings and Drawings..

2011-05-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

Vincent by Lautrec!

2011-04-25T11:39:00.001-07:00

Oooooo i almost forgot about this one. Ive always loved this picture! Im sure it is a perfect likeness as Henri Toulouse Lautrec was the man! I love the story where someone was talking trash about Vincent's art and Lautrec overheard the man and challenged him to a duel. Now that is a loyal friend!

Klimt returned..

2011-04-22T09:20:00.001-07:00

Once stolen, now returned. Click for the story.

The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avante-Gard

2011-04-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

This exhibit sounds great maybe I will go and see it.... CLICK HERE for more

now that is a sculpture

2011-04-09T08:07:00.001-07:00

this thing is around 3400 years old or something..imagine getting a call from Ramesses for a commission- that would be stressful..of course having an army of slaves would lighten the work.

Some of the last half year..

2011-04-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

flashback to jan 2010

I made a movie today showing art from aug 2010 till now but I left a few images out by mistake..oh well no big deal. Among those i left out were the above sketch and these.

a few early march drawings..

2011-04-01T12:38:00.001-07:00

Spring Ink

2011-04-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

a few Pacific Paintings March 2011

2011-03-17T17:24:00.001-07:00

Tsunami and Apocalypse Art by Paul Cumes

2011-03-12T08:26:00.001-08:00

this art on coast to coast^

---
comet racing toward earth..

http://www.paulcumes.com/Paintings/enlarged_view_pages/comet.htm

Painting in Studio

2011-03-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

Paul Cumes, who enjoys painting, brushes up on his artistic skills in his mountain studio high above Santa Barbara, California.

2011-03-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

Feb 2011 artwork

2011-02-28T19:14:00.001-08:00

Leadbetter Point Painting by Paul Cumes 2011

2011-02-20T21:00:00.001-08:00

Drawings morning 2-9-11

2011-02-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

2011-02-03T18:03:00.000-08:00

Jan 2011 paintings

2011-01-31T11:15:00.001-08:00

Wed night drawings

2011-01-27T17:14:00.001-08:00

Wed morning drawings..

2011-01-26T13:35:00.001-08:00

Thurs night sketches

2011-01-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

Perhaps one of these days I will buy an ipad, do some figure drawings on it, and then just upload those onto the blog quickly and easily... but Im sure that (drawing on a computer) could never give me the same feeling as good old charcoal on paper. I like coming home late at night with charcoal all over my hands and an arm-full of sketches! :)

In case you were wondering what there is in the end..

2011-01-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

“In the end, there is only Matisse.”

-PICASSO

Crazy Mythological Painting by Rubens (and Goya!)

2011-01-09T15:11:00.000-08:00

Painting by Peter Paul Rubens of Cronus devouring one of his children, Poseidon

Goya: "Saturn Eating his Children" or something like that. It's off the hook.

Half Moon Rising

2010-12-30T12:38:00.000-08:00

Oil Painting 20" x 16"

A few December 2010 drawings..

2010-12-26T19:01:00.000-08:00

Cimmi's Dolls

2010-12-26T14:23:00.001-08:00

My wife makes the coolest handmade dolls. They have been selling like hotcakes!
You should buy one :) here

Some December 2010 Artwork..

2010-12-23T08:09:00.000-08:00

Quote for Today

2010-12-18T16:30:00.000-08:00

"Talk is for losers and fools"

Lyric from: Victim Of Love -by The Eagles

Don Felder/J. D. Souther/Don Henley/Glenn Frey

Ancient Sculpture

2010-12-17T10:18:00.000-08:00

This is cool. A marble statue that is probably thousands of years old was just recovered in the port city of Ashkelon, Israel. It dates back to the Roman occupation. What a bummer that the head is no longer attached to the body.. but that is no shock as it was buried in the seashore. It would be awesome to see the whole thing. I wonder what the story is on this thing? I wonder who the sculptor was? Who knows!

Jiu Jitsu December 2010

2010-12-05T16:37:00.000-08:00

Stoked today after a great bjj seminar at GBSB with Rolles Gracie Jr. It was a very informative session where he taught us several new moves that I cant wait to try and use on the mat. It was a lot of fun.

update: I got my bluebelt 6 days after this. It was gratifying because I worked through a few serious injuries including a torn LCL and Rotator Cuff to get here :) so now onto the next goal in bjj..

Professor Rodrigo Clark, myself and Beto right after I received my blue belt ^

a photo with the other belt promotions :)

UFOs over Santa Barbara ?

2010-12-04T16:55:00.000-08:00

My sister took this photo at sunset yesterday..

(ok, ok they are only reflections..but it looks cool anyway!)

Thundarr the Barbarian

2010-12-04T16:44:00.000-08:00

I was trying to describe this cartoon to my wife a few months ago and then today my buddy randomly shared this post from youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhAobPugvsk&feature=related

..all these years later it still holds up. Looking on google i can see they have churned out a few lesser versions since I was a kid (i think i was 8 yrs old when i watched this), but I am talking about the original animation of course.

It is the best cartoon prelude ever!

image is a bit blurry but this is a jpeg of what i remember..(with the cracked moon and all)

November 2010 Artwork

2010-11-30T08:35:00.001-08:00

Sunrise Over the Santa Barbara Channel

2010-11-30T06:38:00.000-08:00

These photos do no do the scene justice but i thought i would post them anyway. The wild thing is that 10 hrs later (after the moment pictured above.. at the end of this day), my friend Dan grabbed me and pulled me out of the studio (i had been lurking in my cave, hermit style, all day) to look at the sunset.. and it was for sure one of if not the MOST beautiful and stunning sunsets I have ever seen in my life- sans hyperbole. Fitting it was as well because it was his last day living in our extra bedroom and we sat there watching it together, like some bitter sweet description by Kerouac. Alas, I wish I would have taken photos of it.. but daylight was fleeting and all i could do was stand there and enjoy the moment with my friend. We sat there in awe. All I can do is try and describe it to you. It was a scattered orange, red, and magenta mackerel clouded sky to the west, stretching out into infinity over the horizon.. to our right were several large puffy pink wisps of cloud clinging to the blue/green mountains in the north..and behind us clear and lavender skies to the east. The ocean was calm, a glassy and silver surface spread out to the south with dark purple islands framing the scene across the channel. It made these photos look bland to say the least! It was really something else.

Dolls by Cimmerii

2010-11-21T19:49:00.000-08:00

GO HERE AND BUY AN ORIGINAL ECO-FRIENDLY DOLL BY CIMMERII

http://www.etsy.com/shop/cimmerii?ref=seller_info

Ourobouros

2010-11-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros

Im tired of ranting about religion and politics..this symbol pretty much sums it all up for me..

Today's Palette

2010-10-28T13:59:00.001-07:00

Click on the image to see what i painted with this palette..

Picasso's drawing of Stravinsky

2010-10-18T13:14:00.001-07:00

i have always loved this drawing but the more i look at it the more i think that Picasso did this from a photograph. Not that there is anything wrong with that.. but i suspect that the direct confidence and almost cartoon quality he shows in these lines betrays the fact that he had reference material. If anyone has historical evidence to disprove this theory please share it with me. Another possibility is that it is a finished pen drawing from a rougher pencil sketch. Pablo was a man of many styles..this one has a hint of neoclassicalism to it.. but it isnt raw, it is very premeditated. Nothing against the genius of the man but I dont think he just sat down and drew this as Igor sat, which is exactly what he probably wanted us to think he did (looking at the seated pose, etc.) Anyway it is a great drawing and I love it nevertheless :) I dont know much about Stravinsky, but I linked this image to some info on him and found it quite interesting....

Hey while I am on the subject of Picasso and Stravinsky..check out this piece of music.

Vincent van Gogh theft in Egypt

2010-10-14T14:02:00.000-07:00

Im usually a fan of high profile painting heists, however.. it bugs me that the idiot thieves in this caper cut the canvas to remove it from the frame, grrr that was stupid...

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/egypt-jails-11-officials-over-van-gogh-painting-theft/19671963?test=latestnews

i guess they siezed the art at the airport..and it was the second time it has been stolen from that museum lol
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/7958249/Van-Gogh-recovered-after-being-stolen-from-Egyptian-museum-for-second-time.html

xtra sept. art

2010-10-02T08:26:00.001-07:00

i forgot to upload this painting i did earlier in the month when i updated my website...
i try to document all my work but a lot of it slips thru the cracks, or gets documented but never put online.....

Pink Hippo!

2010-10-02T07:46:00.000-07:00

Pink Hippo

Brothers Will and Matt Burrand-Lucas snapped this pink hippo while visiting the Masai Mar in Kenya to hunt the wildebeest migration.

While having a picnic breakfast on the banks of the Mara River, the rare beast emerged on the far bank of the river. According to a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, the hippo is leucitic and not albino, meaning it lacks pigment, but not necessarily melanin.

The Lucas brothers said unusual creatures frequently become outcasts, rejected by their conventionally colored peers. "In this case however, we were relieved to note that the other hippos seemed to be treating the pink hippo just like any other."

Source: William Burard-Lucas