Portraits

Admittedly, portraiture is not my strong point, but I do try to convey a feeling of the subject’s personality. Some of the pictures shown here are included in other themes, but they display the variety of portraits I've painted.

“Self Portrait on a Bench” reflected my 22-year-old transcendental thinking. (At that time, I used the same light yellow in various paintings to represent enlightenment.) It is in response to a lifelong obsession with basketball as both a fan and player. For the guitar players, I used the same palette to convey Ken's steady playing and that Buffalo John is quite a character—here jamming on his "silent" guitar that has a frame but no body.

Self Portrait as the Patron Saint of Basketball ~ 1997 • 16 x 20
Self Portrait on a Bench ~ 1973 • 14 x 11
Ken Playing Guitar ~ Ken Sprinkle, Oceanside, CA 2008 • 18 x 24
Buffalo John Playing Guitar ~ John Webster, Bigfork, MT 2008 • 18 x 24

My son, Charlie, lived on the beach during college and asked me to paint a sunset that showed the scenery from his porch. He played on UCSB’s Ulimate Frisbee team, The Black Tide, which had a logo of an oil platform off the coast. He was 21 years old at the time, and the picture hung in his living room for a couple of years, where friends could look at it and say, “Hey, that’s the same view as out there!”

Black Tide ~ Charlie Cohn, Santa Barbara, CA 2005 • 48 x 36

The horses and riders from the Bob Marshall Wilderness were our guides, and "Go Between Wins the Pacific Classic" was the winner of a million-dollar purse at Del Mar Racetrack, where Lindsey and I drank champagne in the winner's circle with the owner. The two portraits from "12 Days in Paris" are also included here, as are a few others.

Greg in the Bob ~ Private collection, Choteau, MT 2009 • 20 x 16
Go Between Wins the Pacific Classic ~ Del Mar 2008 18x24
Greg in Mirror ~ 2012 • 16 x 20
Lindsey at the Piano ~ 2013 • 18 x 24
Self-Portrait at Oceanside Pier ~ Bradley Gates 2017 • 11 x 14
Ann in the Bob ~ Private collection, Choteau, MT 2009 • 20 x 16
Lindsey in Giverny ~ 2012 • 11 x 14
Cozy at the Beach (detail)
Exiting the Hot Tub ~ Susan Rosenberg, Palo Alto, CA 1996 • 24 x 36
Surfs Up at Terramar #3 (Self-Portrait) ~ 2019 • 30 x 24 Pauline Wrotkowski, Carlsbad