Some Of My Dads Paintings and Other Stuff

Scout, Marksman , and I - painted by my dad - Charles Clark III

 My Dad is a self  trained artist. He is really a landscape painter, but I am showing some of his portrait paintings today.He never painted more than a handful of these, and decades apart. One is from about eight years ago. It is a portrait he did of me with my two labs, Scout and Marksman. My Dad painted lots of paintings as I grew up and when he retired, he planned on painting a lot more, playing golf and traveling with my mom. Then his Parkinson's quickly got worse and sadly those things have not been able to happen as much as we hoped. This portrait is one of his last paintings and thus one of my greatest treasures.

These are the three photos my dad used for the painting. Me (at least 15 years ago), the great  Marksman (who passed a few years ago and will always be greatly missed), and  Scout who has come into her own as a great dog.

My grandfather, Charles Clark II, painted by my dad in the 1960s

My grandmother, Grace Clark, painted by my dad in the 1960s.

These two paintings are the oldest paintings I have from my dad. They are some of his earliest paintings. They are portraits of my grandparents. They were in my closet because one of them had a rip in it. I decided to repair it and find a place to hang them up. I will post some of  his landscapes later to show what he was really capable of.



Work in Progress
oil based clay

 I shared these portraits because portrait and figurative art has been very important in our art circles here in Fort Worth this past week. On Thursday a group us went to the Kimbell Museum for lunch and then 14 of us went on a docent led tour of the Lucien Freud exhibit across the street at the Modern Art Museum. This show will only be shown  here in Fort Worth and in London. I can not say that I am a huge Lucien Freud fan but I truly enjoyed the tour and seeing the art. The last painting is unfinished, it is the painting he was working on when he died.
 The evening after our tour a group of us met at the community art center to sculpt, paint, and draw from a model. I am working on the figure above. We had a good group and the session went well.

Our group painting a model in the Fort Worth botanical gardens

 Then Friday morning at 7:30 (to avoid the oppressive heat) some of our group met in the botanical gardens to paint a model. We had a good group Linnea, Tosca, Olivett, Dan, Leslie, some new artists to our group, Jeff Ott, and Julie Wende, and visiting from Santa Fe Cecelia Robertson. I was not thrilled with my painting but I enjoyed the experience.

Our model, a high school dance student.

After painting we decided to go back to the Kimbell Museum for lunch, but had some time to kill so we went over to the Japanese Gardens to walk around.

The Entrance to the Japanese Gardens

 The Japanese Gardens are one of the most beautiful parts of the gardens, but you cant paint in them, so I haven't shown many photos from it. But  it is very deserving.

A Little Green Heron Fishing in the Gardens.

 The Japanese Gardens are a great place to look for wild life. While we were there we saw a little green heron, a great blue heron, wild ducks, turtles and of course the koi.

The Koi

A Pair of Mallard  Ducks

A Peaceful Garden View

An Interesting Structure in the Gardens

 After walking through the gardens and being inspired to come back and sketch, we headed over to the Kimbell Museum for lunch. This was my third time that week it was great as always. That concludes the week. More adventures tomorrow.