Author Archives Richard

About Richard

Richard developed an interest in nature at an early age by going camping and fishing with his family. His mother was an avid bird watcher, and his father took him fishing often. Fishing helped him develop patience and an eye for doing landscapes. Richard attended The Ringling School of Art and Design, where he fine tuned his eye for landscapes and developed the ability to put what he saw on canvas. He did well in his landscape and drawing classes. Richard is also known for his Tronpe-loeil paintings which he started in 1977. Trompe-loeil roughly translates "To Fool the Eye". His paintings are so realistic that people go up and touch them. Most people are surprised when they find them to be only paint on canvas. People find Richard's landscapes to be relaxing and his Trompe-loiel pieces thought provoking and fun.

“Backyard Birds”

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This painting was inspired by watching the birds that come to the bird feeders in my backyard. I keep the feeders full of sunflower seeds, which the birds and squirrels love. I usually see Cardinals, House Finches, Chickadees, Blue Jays, and once in a while Wood Peckers. We find all kinds of bird feathers in our yard including red wing hawks and owls. The Chickadee and Carolina wren were carved out of the wood the bricks framing the canvas were carved from. The vines were made of wire with canvas leaves attached. Ive been experimenting with bringing the image beyond the edge of the canvas. On this painting the broken bricks, carved birds, and vines do just that. 

This painting was selected to be in the Artfields 2019 competition from April 26 – May 4, 2019.

"Backyard Birds"

Title: Backyard Birds
Size: 32.5″x31.25″
Price: $6200.00
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas and Wood

 

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“November Light”

in Landscape, Paintings
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The light at the end of the day is sometimes spectacular. This painting was inspired when I saw light on the trees while waiting to pickup my grandson. Bright light on the trees in the background and the trees in the foreground in shadow with a pale moon rising. This painting was finished on October 29, 2018.

November Light

Title: November Light
Size: 44″x24″
Price: $4500.00
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

 

 

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“Studio Study”

in Paintings, Trompe L'oeil
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I’ve Been painting glass objects for many years. My studio has a collection of old bottles I started collecting when I was a kid. I also have a collection of old marbles, my wife says that I am collecting all of the marbles that I have lost. The pitcher in this painting is a Lusterware pitcher my aunt Beda gave my mother years ago and I thought it would be a challenge to paint the copper colors. My younger brother said he noticed I learned to paint objects by painting them over and over until I got them right. This painting was done in November for an article on still life painting in the January 2019 Issue of American Art Collector Magazine.

Studio Study

Title: Studio Study
Size: 16″x14″
Price: $1800.00
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

 

 

 

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“Pasture View”

in Paintings, Trompe L'oeil
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Ideas for my window paintings usually start with something I’ve seen. In this painting my wife Cindy and I had gone up to a wedding near Charlotte, NC. The cows in the painting were in the field behind where the wedding took place. The porcelain rabbits came from photos I had. The vase of flower were some Cindy had put together and the other flowers came out of our yard. All of these objects came together to become this painting. 

Pasture View

Title: Pasture View
Size: 60″x48″
Price: $9200.00
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

 

 

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“Evening’s Trail”

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There are many places I have gone looking for things to paint. My favorite place has been Cumberland Island, Georgia. It has wonderful landscapes and wildlife including wild horses. In this painting the viewer is going down a trail, its evening, and there are three of the wild horses further down the path. I’ve done about twenty paintings from the Cumberland Island area, this being the newest and largest one. I finished with painting September 3rd, 2018.

My landscapes start off with a base coat of Raw Sienna, Then block in the large areas with dark greens and the color I use for the sky, finally I start several weeks of dots and dashes of constantly changing colors to form the trees and bushes. The Cabbage Palms in this painting took nine days to paint.

Title: Evening’s Trail
Size: 60″x48″
Price: $9200.00
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

 

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“Evening Star”

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I have painted many boats from Virginia to Florida, many of which were photographed while on my brother’s boat. My brother’s boat was a 52′ schooner (the “Evening Star”) shown in the painting below. This painting was featured in the December of 2012 Issue of Southwest Art Magazine. It was done from an old photo of my brother’s boat added to a fantasy landscape that reminds me of Winyah Bay near Georgetown, South Carolina. 

Title: Evening Star
Size: 30″ x 40″
Price: $3200.00
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

 

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“Magic Morning”

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In this painting the sun is just coming up and this Great Egret is flying in for the mornings hunt. These birds are common in the marshes of the southeast. I’ve been painting egrets for years. I started using them as decoration for my landscapes, but in recent years I’ve been painting them on a larger scale. This one was done toward the end of 2016 and is one of my favorite paintings.

Title: Magic Morning
Size: 62″ x 40″
Price: $7200.00
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

 

 

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“Carolina Parakeets”

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*SOLD*

I was inspired to paint these Carolina parakeets because they were found in our area until the 1930’s when hunters killed off these birds for their colorful feathers. I spent awhile doing research looking for photos of these birds. I picked several birds in poses I liked and put them into landscapes similar to areas they could have been found in. I especially liked this painting because of the way the color of the birds blends with the landscape around them. I think this is the best of the three paintings that I’ve done with parakeets in them. Its too bad these beautiful birds have gone extinct. 

Title: Carolina Parakeet
Size: 20″ x 16″
Price: $1800.00

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“Seed King”

in Paintings, Trompe L'oeil
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This window was finished spring of 2017. We had been having problems with squirrels in our attic, so I did a few paintings with squirrels in them. This is the second one in the series. It has a squirrel looking out a window at a field of sunflowers, because every squirrel wishes they had their own field of sunflowers. We have two “bird” feeders which I keep filled with sunflower seeds. The squirrels let the birds have some, sometimes.

Title: Seed King
Size: 60″ x 48″
Price: $9200.00
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

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“Fishing”

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*SOLD*

I became interested in Egrets and Herons while living in Sarasota, Florida. I had a special fishing spot that had a blue heron living in the area. I started feeding him fish that were too small to keep so that I could study the way that he caught and ate the fish. He started trying to get the larger fish I put in my bucket so I had to quit feeding him. In this painting I painted an egret who has just caught fish. It takes place in a cypress swamp with two other egrets the background.

Title: Fishing
Size: 48″ x 36″
Price: $6200.00

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“Those were the Days”

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Charleston, South Carolina is a very special place to me. I showed my artwork there for over thirty years. In this painting I have one of my father in law’s antique cars parked in front of an old house in Charleston.

Title: Those were the Days
Size: 16″ x 12″
Price: $1800.00

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“Near Georgetown”

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My latest painting, “Near Georgetown” was completed on February 23rd this year. I’ve always loved sailboats! The two boats in this painting were in Georgetown near where my brother Don had his boat, I took photos of them from his boat. I Liked the way the light was hitting the trees in the background. The Color in the sky has 4 shades of blue over a base of raw Sienna, I tried to keep it soft.

 

Title: Near Georgetown
Size: 24″ x 30″
Price: $3200.00

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“Tale of the Silent Crow”

in Paintings, Trompe L'oeil
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One of Richard’s latest pieces “Tale of the Silent Crow” was completed at the beginning of this year. It is just one of many in a series of trompe-l’oeil windowscapes with birds and other creatures involved. This one entails crows throughout the painting. Richard stated “I think crows are interesting; the one on the window ledge I photographed in a parking lot at the beach years ago. I like his pose and finally put him into one of my paintings. He seems to be trying to talk to the crow inside of the window, a decoy, the silent crow.” He went on to explain the detail and color used in this work. “On the perimeter of the window I used a different texture that I haven’t used before. I also cut 30 leaves out of canvas, painted each one, then attached them to the canvas. As you can see some of them (leaves) extending beyond the edge of the canvas.”

Title: Tale of the Silent Crow
Size: 48″ x 52″
Price: $8500.00

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“The Lost”

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Title: The Lost
Size: 16″ x 20″
Price: $1800.00

These three birds (a gold finch and two house finches) are usually found in populated areas. I see house finches around our bird feeders a lot. The narrative for the three birds in my painting is they have flown into the forest and are lost in the woods. I used a different painting process to do the trees in the background, in this painting I used very wet acrylic paint over a dried layer of darker paint. I absorbed some of the wet paint with a towel, then went back into it with a brush to get more defined shapes. I really like the way the background turned out in this painting. 

 

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“Bird of a Diifferent Feather”

in Paintings, Trompe L'oeil
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Title: Bird of a Different Feather
Size: 60″ x 36″
Price: $9200.00

Most of my windows are done as if the viewer were outside looking in at a still life, with a reflection of what’s outside. The reflection covers the upper section of the windows, and sometimes covers parts of the still life. This painting is different because I’ve painted the window panes as if they were broken to go with the broken brick around the window frame, I wanted the painting to look like a section of brick wall that has been torn out with a window in it. Ive created this painting by attaching smaller canvases to the sides of a larger one, and then framing in wood, more wood was then added. The wood was then carved and painted to make it look like old brick. I like the abstract shape of the painting. In the window is a collection of bird eggs, a cobalt blue bottle with feathers in it, and a strange looking antique wooden toy duck. There is a couple of Carolina wrens that have come in through the broken window. They are fussing at the strange looking duck as if accusing it of steeling the eggs. All of my windows have a story behind them… This one would start with “Once upon a time there was a bird of a different feather…” The rest of the story I leave up to the imagination of the viewer. This was the first painting that was finished after my cancer treatments and was shown in the 2014 ArtFields. 

 

 

 

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“Neighbors”

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This painting is called “Neighbors”. As with all my windows, this one is painted as if you were outside looking in. There is a reflection of a Neighbors house in the upper part of the window and a still life with a cat in the lower part. The “Neighbors” the title refers to are the natural ones outside the window. They include: the squirrel, a Carolina Wren, a lizard, a Tree Frog, two Butterflies, a Hummingbird, a Grasshopper, and a Lady bug. The Cat in the window is one of my cats. I love my cat, but at first it was complicated for me to have her in the house due to my allergies. Even though I was having a hard time I didn’t want to get rid of her, so I began to learn more about alternative mediciine that could help with my allergies. I don’t regret all that research, she is very special because she brings flowers to the door of our home. She started this 7-8 years ago. The first time I saw her carrying one, I thought she had a Cardinal. She saw me coming, dropped it, and walked away. The flower was a Camellia that had dropped off the bush. Some days she will bring 15-20 blossoms up the driveway to the door. My wife is a florist and likes the flowers better than what our other cats bring to the door. I’ve been lucky a few times to get pictures of her carrying flowers.

This painting was hanging at the Lake City Public Library and Technology Center for ArtFields in Lake City, SC On Main St. (April 24-May 2, 2015)

Title: Neighbors
Size: 48″ x 60″
Price: $8500.00

 

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