This is my second painting of horses running in the surf. The person who bought the first one asked for a second one with some darker horses. I went back to basics and this painting turned out even better than my white horses. The gold leaf frame is from the Habitat Restore as is the recycled 18 x 20 canvas!
The horses remind me of the wild horses that roam on the outer banks of North Carolina and Virginia.
Running wild and free
Stirring up the the foaming surf
Mole crabs burrow deep
A couple of years ago I painted a large 4′ x 5′ painting of white horses running in the surf. I saw a video of this and thought it would make a great painting. It turned out very well. A year later I decided to try to do a smaller 16″ x 20″. After working on it awhile I laid it aside. It just was not coming out like I wanted. Later I went back to it again and again laid it aside. Finally this year I thought I would give it one last try and this fall started working on it again. What I discovered is you cannot paint something just white. There has to be shadows and shades of gray and purple to make it show the contrast needed so the white can be highlighted.
This past week I finally got it done to my satisfaction. When I put it on my facebook page, one of my friends said she wanted to buy it! So today it got packed up and shipped to South Carolina. I am very happy she liked it as much as I did.
Black and White looks stark
Accents and highlights don’t show
without shades of gray
Much like the rest of us
Trying once again to blend
*****
Today is World Kindness Day celebrated in many countries.
Perhaps the US should consider adding it to our list of celebrations.
Paintings: Dwight L. Roth
Brokenness and humility
….can be the first step to restoration and beauty!
I am sharing this post to show that even the broken can be restored and what others throw in the dumpster can become treasures. This guitar was about to be tossed at the Habitat Restore where I volunteer. I got it and brought it home to work on. I saw it was a vintage guitar from 1937. I could not afford to have it totally restored, so I decided to do it myself and keep it as an art piece.
It was very badly damaged inside and out, but I managed to get it back together using plastic wood. I sanded it smooth and primed it for painting.
I wanted to paint a somewhat Spanish type design to reflect its origins. This is how it turned out. I then covered it with clear coating to preserve it. I was able to tune it up and it held together. It is now in my hallway as a decorative piece.
This rocker was taken from a pile of trash along the street back in the mid 1990s. It had no rockers and was cracked on the seat. The head piece was discolored from hear gel. I stripped the head and restained it. I fixed the seat and made new rockers from 2x4s. I embedded dowels into the legs so I could attach the rockers. We have had it in our home ever since. It sits very well.
This Esteban Guitar was given to me by a friend who had dropped it and busted the end as you can see. I used Bondo body filler to fill in the broken area. After sanding it down, I decided I would paint a picture on it to cover the damaged areas.
This is the end result. I was very pleased with the way it turned out. It played very well. I sold it to a lady who gave it to her daughter for Christmas so she could learn to play.
These are just a few of the many things I have rescued over the years.
When life overwhelms
Focus on what’s important
Nature’s beauty calls
This has been great painting weather. Today I found an old painting I did back in 2013. It was a black swallowtail from my garden on a 4′ x 5′ canvas. I liked the painting but it was too big for anyone to be interested in, so I cut it down to 31″ x 48,” leaving just he butterfly, and used the top half for another painting I did last year. I had the canvas stored rolled up and it had a couple of places that were damaged, so i decided to remount what was left and touch it up. It turned into a greater restoration than I expected, but I like the end results.
Great Pork Bar-B-Que
Whole hog cooked on hot charcoal
Fall Pig Pickin’ time
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Painting – Dwight L. Roth
Last week the heat of summer went down to the low eighties, so I decided to dabble in my painting again for a change. I paint in my garage, so I don’t get much done in the middle of the summer. I decided to paint a Blue Heron wading in the shallows looking for food.
Blue Heron wades through marsh
Eyeing green frogs’ slight movements
Crawdads hide in muck
*****
Blue Heron Painting: Dwight L. Roth
Old musicians die
But their music lives on
Beautiful tributes
To the power they harnessed
That changed the world
Challenged politics
Social Norms
And, brought about revolutions
Music that touches the soul
Reaches all the way to Heaven
And Hell
Yes, old musicians die
But their music is alive and well
Today at d’Verse, it is open link night. Linda, our host talked about her love for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones when she was young. Some musicians that we enjoyed have passed on for various reasons. John Lennon’s music Imagine will last into the next generation and beyond. I loved country music, which lost a number of its iconic singers early in life. I think of Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, who died in their prime. Buddy Holly also left us way too soon. Even so, their music lives on. This poem is a tribute to them.
I painted my old Harmony guitar a few years ago. I found it many years ago at a yard sale, coming apart at the seams. I glued it back together and it works fine. It was one you could have ordered from the Sears and Roebuck Catalogue back in the 1950s. I laid the guitar on the canvas and traced it off full size and then painted it.
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Photo: Ruth Roth
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Painting: Dwight L. Roth
Painting by: Piet Mondrian, ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie’, 1942-43, moma.org
*Haibuns are a form of Japanese Poetry with two or three short crisp paragraphs of prose followed by a traditional Haiku, that references a season.
Join us at: https://dversepoets.com
Paintings: Dwight l. Roth
*The turtle lies at the point where the stream turns!
