I thought I would start my blog by posting a few of my "Cave Art Paintings." These are paintings inspired by the art work of our ancient ancestors who in the daily rush of survival found time to grace the wall of caves with heartfelt and sometimes unspeakably beautiful paintings of the world around them, mostly wild animals. Various theories about how and why they painted on cave walls are expounded all over the web and in many current books, so I won't go into that detail here.
My cave art is an attempt to recreate the experience of painting on cave walls. To do that I spend as much time preparing the "cave wall" (that is, the painting surface) as I do painting the actual image. Look closely and you will see a three-dimensional quality to the cave walls in most paintings. This is created by the use of acrylic gesso mixed with pebbles and sand, all covered with several layers of white acrylic paint. After all that dries, I begin the exciting art of oil painting.
When I find an image (on the internet or in books) that inspires me, I try to memorize it much the same way a cave painter would had to have memorized his subject matter, say a wild horse or bull running across the plains. Then I try to paint the subject without reference to the original image.
Often the surface and contours of my hand-crafted painting surface suggests a certain image. When this happens, I take that idea as inspiration and follow it to conclusion, often with results that surprise even me. This is a challenge since I do try to stay within the narrow range of colors and tones used by the original artists (which are of course earth colors and tones).
