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Posts Tagged ‘landscape’
Gallery of Recent Landscapes
Sunday, August 3rd, 2025our living landscape . . .
Friday, January 31st, 2025“The landscapes that I choose to paint are tied by a common thread, a sense of nostalgia, a setting that at once is current, but also captures a sense of the (Sacramento) valley that hasn’t changed for many years. I believe that landscapes live in us.”
— Phil Gross
While away from the studio, with limited collage ingredients, I made a miniature copy of a splendid oil painting by Phil Gross. I’ll probably add a few finishing touches and then decide if it’s appropriate to sign it. This turned out to be a very different kind of exercise than any other paper landscape that I’ve done. My thanks to Rowland William Breidenbach for the opportunity to spend time with this landscape.
California Theme (after Phil Gross)
unfinished collage landscape by J A Dixon
10 x 8 inches
framed: 16.75 x 13.75 inches
• S O L D
Collage in the U.P.
Monday, September 30th, 2024 
Spent a chunk of September “painting in papers” while in the Les Cheneaux Islands. This recent method of pasting collage ingredients over a crude charcoal sketch really started to grow on me.
Here is an interim stage of completion for “Up the Channel.” The water foreground needs to be finished and softened. The shoreline can benefit from a few more details. Please stand by for the final version!
Evolving creative intent with similar subjects
Friday, August 30th, 2024“The writing and playing of music is a matter of intent…. You can’t just throw a paint brush against the wall and call whatever happens art.”
— Duke Ellington
There are so many old farmhouses and barns in our Knobland region of Kentucky, and they always hold my rapt attention as I interpret them in found papers. It is necessary, however, for me to quiet my busy mind and discover a soul connection to a particular natural place and the evident stewardship of those who have cared for it. Then, and only then, can I apply an intent to coax my intuition in an expected direction and to handle paper and paste with creativity.
I am pleased with what I achieved on the top half of this small canvas. The foreground is now due for an efficient studio finish.
Check out my series of posts that have described a seven-year plein air adventure, “painting in papers.”
At Walnut Springs (unfinished)
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
on stretched canvas, 10 x 8 inches
Plein Air Artists of Central Kentucky
From Their Special Place
Wednesday, June 5th, 2024“We are part and parcel of the big plan of things. We are simply instruments recording in different measure our particular portion of the infinite. And what we absorb of it makes for character, and what we give forth, for expression.”
— Rockwell Kent
I returned to historic Caldwell Farm to coordinate an “Art Out” for the Plein Air Artists of Central Kentucky (PAACK). When I suitably had met my few obligations for the day, I went alone toward the heart of the acreage to locate a spot that the owners refer to as the “Special Place.” Along a well-tended pathway, near a quiet watershed, I set up my makeshift plein air collage rig. From that perspective, I sought to interpret in papers a far-off cluster of corn cribs and structures that once served as the focus of an innovative cattle-raising operation. Two different angles of this agricultural configuration previously had become part of my LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY collection.
I found myself simplifying, simplifying. Paper demands it, of course, but also I had hoped to touch the essence of the early summer scene — a moody sky, the limited palette of buildings, plus an expanse of new corn, barely above the soil. Representational collage, if anything, must be about expression, not craft. What one is blessed to take away from contact with the fusion of nature, ingenuity, and intentional affection is left to individual receptivity. Being a so-called artist is not necessary to reap the potential benefits of experiencing rural beauty.
From Their Special Place
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
9 x 7.625 inches
private collection
Capturing an Arcadian Sky
Monday, March 25th, 2024“I have learned to expect nothing of the weather
but what it gives us.”
— Rockwell Kent
Last September at nearby Arcadia Farm, I fell under the spell of a horizon and stuck with the mood of early-morning clouds for the rest of the session. With the prevailing heat, other members of the PAACK may have been praying for more breeze, but I was grateful for hours of no wind. I wasn’t even using clothespins! I wanted to interpret the viewscape as that huge land grant might’ve looked to the original Shelby family in the 1700s. Although pleased with the result that I took home, I knew I wanted to make studio additions at the base of the artwork before declaring it ready for a signature. And so here we are, March of 2024. As I look ahead to a new season of taking collage outside, it made sense to finally complete the studio refinements on one of my favorite landscapes from 2023.
Arcadian Sky
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
11.375 x 7.875 inches
available to collectors
Dreaming of Wind Harbor
Tuesday, February 27th, 2024“Nothing happens unless first we dream.”
— Carl Sandburg
Today’s featured artwork is a studio collage landscape inspired by a dream and finished from imagination. I believe it was triggered by a combination of time spent outside observing earth, sky, and water, with the natural reservoir of so-called talent cultivated from childhood.
Dream-inspired images are rare creatures for me, but I grab one when it emerges. More often than not, my waking imagination falls short when trying to capture it. Over the years, I’ve had more success in that line coming up with graphic design concepts than I have with artistic impressions. It probably has something to do with how my subconscious responds to an explicit problem-solving setup, in contrast to more undefined visual images (which in my dreams tend to be preposterously complicated and nearly impossible to retain).
As happened when I shared this image elsewhere, I have often received the remark, “You’re so talented.” Many artists have heard this, too, and would relate to my mentioning it. I usually respond by saying something like this: talent alone goes stagnant early on if an individual doesn’t develop it with a life of effort and follow through. I appreciate what these people mean and their sincere intent to praise, 
but they usually don’t grasp the full picture. A refined trust in intuition is often mistaken for talent, but actual talent is a creation of the Universal Source. Artistic talent, intellectual talent, empathic talent, athletic talent — there is no difference, because we all get our start with some kind of talent as a divine inheritance. For some of us, it might’ve been more obvious (especially if we liked to show off for others). How many “talented” young athletes are age-group champions into later life? How many “talented” young musicians or dancers become professional performers with the respect of their peers? There you have it. Any talent can be lost without the effort and stick-to-it mindset that overcomes challenges and builds effective skills and attitudes. And make no mistake about it — such acquired discipline comes from God, too, so let’s give proper credit and keep working!
Wind Harbor
collage on canvas panel by J A Dixon
studio landscape from dream / imagination
14 x 11 inches
• S O L D
Believing is seeing . . .
Tuesday, November 21st, 2023“Accepting the familiar is the enemy of seeing… Seeing takes work and patience and concentration and focus otherwise we are always walking around in a fog only seeing what we think we know but not actually seeing anything at all.”
— Cecil Touchon
Although I have worked outside at entirely wild places (river palisades, for example), I seem to be drawn more to locations that have been cared for by others. To truly observe a rural setting and interpret it with found paper as a collage landscape, I need to spend hours slowing down my busy mind. I approach a kind of reverence for it as a place of evident stewardship and quiet beauty. It’s a slow-motion form of rapt attention, and I am able to see it as a fusion of natural creation with human affection. LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY is the result.
Her Brother’s Barn
Boyle County, Kentucky
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
8 x 9.3125 inches
16 x 20 inches, framed
giclée print available
the LITTER-ally KENTUCKY collection
Monday, October 16th, 2023
Thank you for your interest in this collection of plein air landscapes. The original collage artwork is infused with litter to encourage stewardship of natural places. Premium giclée prints are available here.
‘Outside/Inside’ is where it’s at!
Monday, January 30th, 2023“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.”
– Edward Hopper
“Painting in papers” is my passion as I work in the studio to finish a season of outside starts while dreaming of springtime. There are many varieties of collage rooted in the history of art and craft. I do get lost in this particular one!
Our “En Plein Air” show in Danville
Monday, August 22nd, 2022“And yet, standing at his appointed place, the trunk of the tree, he does nothing other than gather and pass on what comes to him from the depths. He neither serves nor rules — he transmits. His position is humble. And the beauty at the crown is not his own. He is merely a channel.”
— Paul Klee
Another anticipated En Plein Air annual exhibition has appeared and vanished, my sixth consecutive participation since I took up the challenge of “painting in papers” with the PAACK. My sincere thanks to Art Center of the Bluegrass for continuing to support our regional group!
The two miniatures that I included in the show are featured here. Completing both of them in the studio raised some concerns that I’d be able to retain my on-site impression as I made detailed additions too delicate for outdoor work. Did I manage to do it?
East End Survivor
collage miniature by J A Dixon
6 x 7.125 inches, framed 11 x 14
available for purchase
Gardener’s Nook
collage miniature by J A Dixon
6.25 x 7.25 inches, framed 11 x 14
available for purchase