Apollo 4 with Moon Size:  230 x 405 (9 x 16 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Canvas Notes:  Painting knife This work started with me doing tests on various canvas stretching techniques followed by different variations of gesso application. Not wanting to waste a canvas, despite the wear of experimentation, I opted to interpret one of my favorite NASA photos of the sexiest rocket (missile, actually) ever. As the size was 9 x 16, which is uncommon for art but matches the HD television ratio, this image was well suited for a less square-ish canvas than usual. Since I'd just finished a realism canvas done with brushwork, I wanted to again play with painting knives. Except for the aforementioned gesso applications, there was no brushwork on this painting. A consequence was that the texture made photographing this very problematic, but that was eventually solved. Many images by CJ Carter are ready for purchase in a variety of formats: prints, canvas prints, phone cases, and so much more. Help support this site and the artist by dropping by the store and getting gifts for yourself, for family, and friends.

View From the Stone Doorway Size:  510 x 405 mm (20 x 16 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Canvas Notes:  This started as another heavily treed landscape. Not satisfied with that, I added some distant mountains to give some context and interest. More important was the addition of the doorway. I wanted this to feel like something tangible and to give the viewer a bit of context of being there instead of just looking at a painting. What could have been a generic landscape is now a a place where stories are born. Many images by CJ Carter are ready for purchase in a variety of formats: prints, canvas prints, phone cases, and so much more. Help support this site and the artist by dropping by the store and getting gifts for yourself, for family, and friends.

Alex Morgan Celebration Size:  51 x 40.5 cm (20 x 16 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Stretched canvas Notes:  Painting knives This is a painting that embraced so many interests: my lifelong love of women's sports, painting with knives, and echoing the styles I liked when I was growing up. While my foundation leans more to the realism side of representational art, I also harbor a desire to wield painting knives with bold colors to also feed the impressionistic musae of my inspiration. I also love it when I can feed my women-sports-loving side that I've long been so passionate about. This painting is almost exclusively knife work with just a few lines of brushwork to deal with details too fine for blades. It's also mostly heavy body acrylics which, as I've outlined elsewhere, dry so quickly on my palette that I'm pushed to paint quickly and with commitment. Fun times. Unfortunately, practice is about all I can claim with this image as I don't have the rights to the reference photo to do more. Sadly, most sports photos are rights managed (often with no mention of artist reproduction licensing -- grrrr), and as a result, I don't have nearly the access I'd like to do more of these (hey...artist gotta try to make a living). So, as much as I enjoy the general subject matter, this is going to be an uncommon appearance -- hopefully just for now. It was fun, and since I can't sell it or anything, I actually get to enjoy it hanging on my own walls. (Disclaimer: Neither Alex Morgan, US Soccer, nor the original photographer, have any connection or endorsement with this [...]

White Lightnin' By Its Own Name Size:  30.5 x 40.5 cm (12 x 16 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Gessobord (cradled) Notes:  — I've been very deficient when it comes to doing any work with flowers. Given that we happen to have a small population of roses here at the Casa, I thought it might be interesting to feature one of them in a painting. I'm glad I didn't pick a chrysanthemum or some such. One solitary rose was fiddly enough. Given that I was gifted with a "black thumb" (botanically speaking), it's a sad reality that I haven't cultivated the love of en-petalled flora that many other have. Even so, it was great practice for blending with acrylics, which is always a good skill to keep honed. That said, I've fairly pleased with how it turned out overall. Many images by CJ Carter are ready for purchase in a variety of formats: prints, canvas prints, phone cases, and so much more. Help support this site and the artist by dropping by the store and getting gifts for yourself, for family, and friends.

Taking Measure Size:  35.5 x 28 mm (14 x 11 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Gessobord Notes:  Painting knives My previous painting knife work left me unsatisfied as it was: 1) too small; 2) didn't feature female sports or athletes. Seeking to correct both of those strikes, I found a nice reference image on Pixabay and then got in touch with my inner Neiman. Overall, this amazingly straightforward painting was very satisfying. This image and many other images by CJ Carter are ready for purchase in a variety of formats: prints, canvas prints, phone cases, and so much more. Help support this site and the artist by dropping by the store and getting gifts for yourself, for family, and friends.

Male Goalkeeper for the Save Size:  20.5 x 15 cm (8 x 6 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Gessobord Notes:  Painted with knives I mentioned to my brother that I had a hankering to commit some art with a palette knife, but I was loathe to use so much paint and that the Open Acrylics I use were unsuitable in any case. He surprised me on my birthday with a cache of heavy body acrylics, a craft store palette knife assortment, and a pack of 6x8 gessobord (Ampersand, of course, given the spelling). Now it was up to me. When I got a chance to return to the easel, I figured I'd give it a go. It had been a very long time since I'd wielded a painting knife with wild abandon. There were other challenges: some colors I was unfamiliar with, knives that were larger than the board was happy with, and a board that was undersized for the subject. In other words: this was going to be fun. I figured something to honor the Men's World Cup that was starting at about the same time as this painting would be good. So, football it was. Since I was usually a keeper, I wanted that as the subject. Unfortunately, I don't have any rights to @hopesolo images (the GOAT GK in the women's game IMO), so it was off to Pixabay to find something. Sadly, no good female GK shots. Except for some initial brushwork to set my lines, this was entirely done with the paints, knives, and board gifted to me. Considering the long layoff and the aforementioned challenges -- and that I made up the background on [...]