Slide One: This is the first of the two album covers that I did for Santana in 1985. It's called Beyond Appearances. The airbrushed lettering that you see in the upper left and lower right was a specialty of mine because I had become obsessed with airbrushing in the 80’s. The imagery is common photo collage which I then airbrushed over with transparent paint. I wanted to make an oil painting of what you see there but as so often happens in commercial art, the client wanted what I showed them (which was a mock-up or abbreviated version of what I proposed to do). What you see in this image is the left half of the illustration, the right half being on the back of the album cover. My own paintings during these years were hyper-realistic airbrushed acrylics based on collaged imagery. During these years I had a design studio with employees, payroll, and all the pressure of running my own business (with my wife). It was our only source of income for 25 years, until we both got into the teaching field.

2. Slide Two: The title of this painting is Newsman. It is mixed media which means that a variety of mediums (paints and materials) went into it's production. Oil painted self portraits alternate on the surface of the canvas with screen printed versions of the same image. The screen printing is on clear vellum(translucent slick paper) and that is glued on top of newsprint and various other imagery (for instance photos of other paintings of mine) Most of this kind of detail is difficult to see in reproduction.. The oil painted self portraits are in a style called alla prima. This Italian term refers to a form of painting where the artist's skills of color mixing , drawing, and brushwork come together all at once on the surface ( as opposed to oil painting technique which includes very careful preparatory drawing which is then transferred to the surface to be painted, followed by an underpainting in one color, followed by a succession of transparent layers of oil color one on top of the other.) So in this painting we have the old and new coming together.

3. Slide Three: The third work is an oil painting based on a my visit to the gravesite of Vincent van Gogh in a little village graveyard north of Paris. It is titled Legend. One could call this type of painting experimental. In the first instance it is based on a photo that I took on the way to the grave. The photo depicted a sign on a stone wall directing visitors to the grave. It is legible even though much obscured by the graffiti like graphics. Vincent van Gogh was my first artist hero and visiting the gravesite was a very moving experience for me. This painting represents an attempt at homage, originality, freedom, and a break from the more careful rendering of imagery which characterize many of my works. Across the top of the painting is the motto which Michelangelo Caravaggio used to scrawl on buildings around Rome: no hope no fear Nec Spe…Nec Metu

4. Slide Four: This is a graphite drawing on paper which is simply a rendering from a photo I took in Rome of a very famous marble sculpture by the Italian Baroque sculptor Bernini. The drawing represents only a small portion of the actual sculpture. The Bernini sculpture is known as Pluto and Proserpina and was carved around 1621. It is a scene from Roman mythology. This drawing is one of a group of non experimental drawings and paintings which over the years I have done following a period of experimentation with my work.

5. Slide Five: Rex and Lander in 1985- painted by me in 2005. It is an oil painting on canvas and the figures are life size. I met these kids in the streets of Auburn, Ca.( where I live) in 1985 and took many photos of them with the intention of making some kind of group portrait (there were two girls in the group as well), but I never got around to completing anything until this double portrait in’05. I kept that stack of photos with me for twenty years before finally doing something which I liked.

6. Slide Six: Switzerland Declares War is a large oil painting on canvas done in 2004. It is based in part on a painting by Giorgione ( a Renaissance Venetian painter). Giorgione’s paintings are often quite mysterious and this particular painting has always intrigued me. This composition came to me complete, all I had to do was make a preliminary drawing , and begin painting. That’s not how it usually goes. I’m sure that you recognize the Madonna and Child from Christian iconography, but you may not recognize the standing figure on the left. This is Aesop as depicted by another of my favorite painters Diego Velazquez. So I have done a visual quotation of the Velazquez portrait, which I have stood before many times in the Prado Museum in Madrid. On the right is Billy the Kid, a real life figure who became part of the mythology of the American West. The painting employs an artistic devise which has been studied by art students since the Renaissance called one-point linear perspective which you will be learning about when you read chapter 5 (Space).