Study of In the Peristyle Size:  30.5 x 40.5 cm (12 x 16 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Stretched canvas Notes:  — This is a study of painting done in the Pre-Raphaelite style by J.W. Waterhouse. The challenge of the columns along with doing a human using acrylics (it's been a while) intrigued me. While I prefer to paint on gessoed boards, I've had this canvas lying around for the better part of a year and I figured I should do something with it. The size of the original painting is 52.1 x 67.3 cm, so this was done at 58% and was somewhat cropped to fit the aspect ratio. The reduction added some challenge -- painting larger, to a point, is usually easier. The biggest difficulty comes from the fact that the original was painted on top of another painting, and that painting does show through. Trying to figure out which texture was attributable to which painting made me make decisions that inevitably altered the work. Because of that, this is not so much an art reproduction as it is an interpretation. 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.

Verdant Venture Via Bicycle Size:  35.5 x 28 cm (14 x 11 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Gessoboard Notes:  — I’m not a landscape painter. Even so, since I like my backgrounds to look interesting, I do, from time-to-time, have to paint landscapes. In order to do that well, that means actually painting them to exercise one’s painterly muscles. I found this reference image that required a lot of work doing trees. It also incorporated a small figure, which I like to add to landscape or architectural pieces if they aren’t already there, just so there is some enigmatic story that goes along with the picture. Being a storyteller, it’s little elements like that which make a work such as this eternally interesting to me. Why is he on the road? Where is he going / where is he coming from? Why is he on a bicycle? Is this someplace familiar? Is he pressed for time? And so forth and so on. 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.

Autumn Park Empty Seat Size:  30.5  x 30.5  cm (12 x 12 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Gessobord Notes:  Cradled 3/4″ I’ve made it fairly common knowledge that I’m not the first to volunteer when it comes to landscapes. While I appreciate them in real life and when they are executed well in art, it’s just not something that I’m compelled to do for my own satisfaction. That said, unless you are determined to either do still lifes or portraits with indistinct backgrounds, landscapes will be a significant part of every painter’s work. I chose to do this painting because of the challenge that all of those autumn leaves presented. The range of colors and values despite the largely overcast day offered up something that never failed to demand I pay attention to what I was doing. I put in the seat because I love to at some enigmatic element to entice the viewer to come up with their own stories — whether drawn from real life or imagination. 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.

Saturn V Stage Sep Size:  61 x 40.5 cm (16 x 24 in) Medium:  Acrylic Support:  Stretched canvas Notes:  — This represents the moment when the Saturn V's first stage F-1 engines cut-out and the explosive detonate to separate the S-IC (first stage) from the S-IC/S-II interstage. One of the key events is the four pairs of retro-rockets normally hidden under the engine fairings firing to keep the stages from unintentionally crashing into each other (it happens). I love the Saturn V. When I decided to move from applying acrylics primarily with an airbrush to a "hairy stick" (AKA a brush), it seemed a good choice. Well...yes and no. The subject matter certainly held my attention and pushed me through the learning curve. A big part of that curve was just trying to keep my paints workable for a useful length of time. It was a time of a lot of experimentation with paints, additives, palettes, etc. When I look at the finished piece, I'm always surprised that it came out as well as it did. Because of the difficulties, I always remember it as not being as good. Don't get me wrong, this is hardly a gallery piece, but it will always have a welcome spot in my heart. 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.

Ristra Roja Up Close Size:  12.5 x 18 cm (5 x 7 in) Medium:  Scratchboard Support:  Scratchbord Notes:  Colored with Ampersand Scratchbord Inks I wanted to do a “quick”* scratch work that didn’t involve fur or feathers which are the scratch artist’s bread and butter. I also wanted to shy away from metal and/or glass, as those are often the non-fauna go-tos. Being that I reside in New Mexico, and I happen to have a ristra** available for studies, I opted to make it my victim. Breaking from my usual tradition, I framed the chiles tightly so I’d have to fill the board. I also wanted to play with coloring a scratchboard like most seem to: with Ampersand inks applied with a brush. When I color a scratchboard, my preference is to apply any of a variety of mediums (ink, watercolor, acrylic, etc.) using an airbrush. While I’d practiced doing the usual brush-and-ink method, I’d never actually committed to it with intent. A style choice I made was to do the majority of the work using hatching, instead of cross-hatching. While I often opt for hatching in any case, this time it was deliberate as it allowed me to keep the chiles reasonably distinct during the initial layer of scratch. This resulted in an interesting, though accidental, side-effect of creating diffraction effects which muted a fair amount following varnishing. Other than that, I employed my usual arsenal of scratch tools, leaning heavily on my typical workhorses: needle and pin. * Oddly, it seems the smaller the scratchboard, the longer these things actually take. ** The typical, and seemingly ubiquitous, New Mexico ristra is a tight bundle of red chiles, [...]

Lapsed Vigilance – Sword vs Pen Size:  66 x 78.5 cm (26 x 31 in) Medium:  Mixed Support:  Illustration board Notes:  Ink and acrylic “The pen is mightier than the sword.” “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” These two quotes — apocryphally attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, respectively — are the basis of this piece. Despite our wanting to be touched by the better angels of our nature, the fact remains that as mighty as words may be, they do not make the sword powerless. Indeed, the first quote implies that the sword is still mighty. History has shown that freedoms are always in danger from both within and without unless you are willing to risk all to protect them. Sometimes that price is dear, indeed. Conversely, dangerous subversion can sometimes be stopped before it foments by the well-timed blade. This, plus the extremely polarized political climate that emerged in the last part of the 20th and into the 21st centuries, served as my inspiration. The foundation of this piece is the United States’ Declaration of Independence. It is realized at approximately the actual size of the original document. Like the original, it is hand engrossed. I spent many, many months learning how to write in a similar hand(s) as the original, using Mitchell and Speedball nibs for the header and gothic text, and Gillott 303 nibs for the primary text. After much experimentation, I found a high-quality liquid sumi ink to be the most suitable. The text is not an exact representation. It has a few mistakes (in addition to the mistakes in the original that I included). Exactness wasn’t the goal, just recognizability. Care was [...]