Welcome.
What a grand day this was on the channel. Any day that I can be on the water, specifically in a small skiff with a happy destination perhaps to pick up a couple of sacks of fresh oysters. Well, then that was a day of heaven for me. This day was a warm day in September. I lusted after renting that cottage in the background. I used to visit a friend there from time to time and admired the billowing curtains open to the breeze flowing into the space making it smell fresh and clean.
You could pick up oysters from the beds in front at low tide, catch your fish from the deck and she had a little veg garden in the back. Some perfect music, a few candles, a seafood dinner and watching the sun sink below the horizon was like a little vacation.
This one is sold.
More to come....
Remember to visit Zazzle.com and search out sunnybeachman to find many of my watercolors of this caliber on fun and useful products.
You can reach me at alanlovesart@gmail.com to discuss commissions or prints and purchases of originals that you see here that are listed for sale.
All art copyright Alan Phillips 2015
Welcome.
Well the true idea here is to become enough of a pelican to know how they move, how they fly, prepare to land, land, swim, dive, soar, glide, eat, swallow, draft, hover, float, socialize and launch among many other characteristics. That is if you want to portray a pelican convincingly in a painting as a coastal realist artist.
You will have to excuse the godwits, rusty turnstones, laughing gulls, egrets, royal terns, and pipers as they happened to be in the vicinity and well, they will be in future paintings also.
I am not sure I have spent 10,000 hrs on my work. My reference here is about mastery via Malcom Gladwell's terrific book Outliers: The Story of Success. I may have spent even more than that sum total. Yet, I do not consider myself a master of my art but I feel like and I work as though I am on that path. I plan to be.
One of the ways to get to be someone who can draw is to draw, whether it's perfecting violin, tennis, writing they are all the same. There are no shortcuts and the quality in performance always shows or the lack of it. These were the studies of only the birds for a piece I am working on now. It will be fun for you to check back and see what the finished art looks like and which pelicans were models for the painting.
For all of you from some 30 countries or so that have been checking in and viewing my work thank you.
Remember you can purchase cool items with my watercolor art on them or custom order to products they offer with my images over at Zazzle.com under the heading of sunnybeachman that's me!
All work that has not been sold is for sale except where noted and you can reach me at alanlovesart@gmail.com with any questions concerning purchases or commissions
More to come.....
All art copyright Alan Phillips 2015
Welcome.
Nobody around like Andy Warhol. Course I feel that way about the other Andy too, Andy Wyeth. Perhaps we should create an annual art award called the 'ANDYS' just for artists that work with representational forms.
Both of these artists have had a very positive and influential impact on both my art and business. Thank you.
I very nearly ever cross paths with Andy Warhol in my work and nearly always do with Andy Wyeth in that we are both fans of painting and portraying the coast and the salt life. So just for fun and hey, why not? My charcoal and pastel on brown paper drawing of Campbell's Tomato Soup can. I left the open lid on because it was like, you know, I was tipping my hat! Salute.
More to come.....
All art copyright Alan Phillips 2015
Welcome.
What a powerful novel this is. I was a bit overwhelmed the first time I was introduced to the Magic Realism writing style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and this enchanting world where beliefs and metaphors become forms of fact. Can the supernatural be mundane and the mundane become extraordinary?
This was an oil on canvas done as a frontispiece for a classic leather bound edition of the book. The size was 15 x 20 inches and it was sold quite some time ago. This was probably the most symbolic painting I had ever done in both in the iconography and also with the floating feeling of the composition and the encroaching jungle. A visual metaphor for a written metaphor. What Fun!
If you wish to purchase some great watercolor art of mine on cell phone cases
t-shirts,caps,note cards and many other fun items take a look at my line over at Zazzle.com under Sunnybeachman and happy shopping! Thank you.
If you wish to get in touch by email you can contact me at alanloveart@aol.com
More to come.....
Art copyright Alan Phillips 2015
Welcome.
One of my discoveries in Florida, you know the land of Flora, is the Hibiscus. There is another on this blog a few miles back that is my favorite so far but I really enjoy the beauty of this one as well.
In all their variety in bloom as I travel and see them included in the landscaping it brings a happy vibe to my day. They represent a kind of wellness. Like seeing a dolphin break in a wave on my morning beach rendezvous. I have my list.
Blossoms amaze me. When you think about the evolution from a seed, earth, water and sun being absorbed by the plant through it's roots. It grows a central column and branches, the bud is formed and grows outward and upward made of this delicate flesh that is silken to the touch, fragile but imbued with the most intense hues and chromas, yet has enough strength to push open it's protective covering, all perfectly engineered in sections purposefully designed to complete it's function and striated in leaf and petal, stamen, pollen all to maximize it's continued life...wow.
I really like the color juxtaposition of warm complementary colors against a cool background and composition in this one. 22 x 24 inches oil on canvas. Sold.
More to come.....
All art copyright Alan Phillips 2015
Welcome.
This is a a work about the shallows of the shoreline of the sea. In referencing the title for this post (which is different from the art) it is a little bit from the the song with the words that, "I hope you still feel small when standing beside the ocean." I believe from Lee Ann Womack "I hope You Dance." and indeed a song I sing to my daughter.
I have never felt small standing beside the ocean,
You see the ocean for me has always been a co-conspirator of fun, adventure, mystery, healing, excitement, energy and magnificence. I have been pummeled, tossed, held down, spun and rising nearly breathless from her hold to the surface never for one second held a grudge. She is perfect and wonderful and I have the utmost respect for her wrath and superiority. But we have since I was very young been playmates and to my child's minds eye I was no less dolphin than my fellow bottlenose finny friends swimming a bit further out.
Oneness is a state of being. I feel vast when I stand beside the ocean.
The Title of this piece is Garden of Dolphins. It is in a private collection. Oil/acrylic/plaster on canvas 30x40 inches.
More to come....
All art copyright Alan Phillips 2015
Welcome.
Imagine it's a hot summer day in July. You are in Florida. You are precisely in Jacksonville Beach Florida. One block from the beach you scamper in your flip flops to an oasis.
What could be more refreshing than to step into an old fashioned, air conditioned ice cream parlor with a sunny striped awning for a fresh squeezed lemonade or a scoop of your favorite flavor ice cream to cool you down?
I have not been down to this spot in a while. I am not sure it is still there. When it was it always brought a smile to my face to saunter in and satisfy my indulgence for a sweet treat.
This has been sold. $1,500.00 US. It is a it was a quick study on location in oil 11x14 on gallery wrap canvas.
More to come.....
All art copyright Alan Phillips 2015
