teacher aide in Kansas City newspaper

The Kansas City Star did a story Monday (January 25th) covering teachers who use the humanities in rural Missouri. Robin Farias uses Art Prints and creative drawing to inspire her high school English class. She found me in the Elementary lunch room and told the journalist about my art involvement in Carrollton. As result, my face showed up in Monday's printed edition and the Star's on-line photos by clicking HERE.

crunch crunch crunch

Click on 3 min.video (above) to hear crunch of snow on night walk.

North central Missouri received a load of snow Wednesday, January 6th. During past years, this part of the world had dry winters, with very little snow amounts.

This year snow fell around the holiday Christians know as Christmas. The five inch snow and single digit temps were different.
What is your snow like this year?
Please leave your comment below. Click on "comment" and a reply box will appear.



It was 7 o'clock at night and I was out walking my dog. As he and I walked down the street under the glow of street lights, something occurred this time. It was a sound that unlocked a distant excitement......within.


That particular crunch, my heavy boots falling on light powder, me all bundled up, warm inside, scarf covering my nose and mouth, icy air around my glasses, fingers warmed by woven gloves.










I loved snow, the whiteness, being inside warm. I loved going on walks with my father. My brother and I would bundle up, pull on our rubber boots, buckle 'em up, and march out into a friendly blizzard, to trudge with our father blocks and blocks downtown. I was still able to feel it. Not just as memories, but even now as an adult. Yes.

Click on video to where I live and paint, one the outskirts of Carrollton. Home sweet home.

leading by example

She has taken this class before.
I have seen her add colors to one area until, moving back and forth, the colors turned to black and without a brightness of its own.
This semester I have been assigned to guide her through her class projects. The MIDDLE picture is mine, first, with pencil grids and circle shapes scrawled across a stretch of whiteness.
Then, dabbing colors in just one area, and letting them dry, then dabbing a different color in another area and letting it dry, and so on. She did the TOP picture by herself. A pencil grid by her own hand with scrawled shapes.
This is her growing, with patches of color left to dry,
next to other patches of color left to dry. Her color choices, her brush marks, and her choosing to stop. Double click on the image to enlarge it. While she works through her process, I daddle on my own bottom picture. The high school art instructor has thanked me for my coaxing. My job is to take the class project, adapt it to her skill level,
and give her new ways to grow as an artist.

clues to how I work

With medical trips to Kansas City at the beginning of Christmas break...... painting was out of the question. A week later, yesterday, I was trying to imagine a background for a work. I thought I could find the desired scene among my photo files, but the search took its toll, depleting my energy. It was at that point I took note of my wife's admonition "to paint." Getting started can be slow. Here is how I got started on this day....

Soon I settled on doing a color sketch of John Crocker 's "Home In the Wilderness 1853," which describes a river flanked by darkened trees, a distant atmospheric mountain rise topped by a softened cloud bank. The tree reflection in the water, the river bank in shade, the selective darkening of trees, and the faint appearance of clouds were qualities I wanted to learn myself. I used Windor Newton Raw Umber, Utrecht Chromium Oxide Green, Brilliant Blue, Titanium White, Hansa Yellow Pale, and Cadmium Red Light . The exercise of mixing and matching his oil colors with my tube acrylic colors was two-fold.

First, activate observation, perspective, and composition placement, and second, get myself into a painting mindset, a "doing-it----not-just-thinking-about-it" activity.


I worked it up on 14 x 11 sketch paper (left).


Working with my version of Crocker's palette, I pulled up a "river bend along Moss Creek" photo reference and laid in the fore and middle grounds. Click on videos to see sky take shape. (background music by Art Farmer on trumpet)



Click videos to watch reworking of the foregound.


I worked up a color sketch on 11 x 14 Morning on Moss Creek (right) Double click on image to enlarge.

Thomas William Roberts A Quiet Day on Darebin Creek 1885 oil 20 x 28

Switching gears, definitely warmed up,
I looked at Tom Roberts' work (above) and went about composing a new piece with myself seated among the reeds. Working from two references I put down light strokes to create the compositional "map." The palette was the same plus Cadmium Orange.

Click video to watch figure emerge.



Click video for final touches.
14 x 11 inch color study on sketch pad
Among The Grasses (right). Double click on image to enlarge.

The wheels are up and running. This is a composition I could use for a canvas painting. Sometimes I feel so strongly about a direction that I can paint on a panel or canvas without a working sketch. Actually, most times it is like that. Other times I am timid and edge into an idea gingerly. And sometimes I do not like the way the composition sits and it feels like a train wreck. Those times do not end up being shown anywhere. When I showed her my efforts this day, during my Christmas break, she was pleased. And I felt like I had made some progress.

muchas gracias

Thanks to mark, margaret, usha, maia, annabelle, fernando, ralph, heidi, sara, patrick, almostds, lisbon and your followers for tracking my blog.
Thanks to those of you in Liaoning, Dubai, Istanbul, Dushetis Raioni, Madrid, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Surrey, Eastern Cape, Jakarta Raya, Rio De Janeiro, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Quintana Roo, Ontario, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, Zurich, Bohinj, Fujian, California, New York, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Carolina, Washington, Nevada, Virginia, Florida, Texas, Illinois, and Missouri.

Blessings to each one of you in 2010. Close moments with jesus and a strength beyond knowing.

le divan Enfant

Un Meditacion Cristiana

As I walked down the alley I found this piece of chamois. It was oil-stained. Later I cut it down into a square and hand-stitched embroidery thread along its edge.Then I mounted the square on an inverted pizza sauce cup, beneath the squashed plastic soda bottle (above). A mooshed grocery bag, covered with red acrylic paint, created the ridges that cradle a most precious find.The fine mesh of a potato sack gives it the finishing touch.

Arms Of Rest

My Bavarian ancestors rejoiced.
I say with them,
"You found me. You made me yours.

Venite adoremus, Dominum."

My Sister In Ethiopia

Brother Obermueller

My Brother Loves Jesus Christ

Air Strike....God's Love Breaks Me Apart
glitter, asphalt, candy wrappers, butterfly, plastic tray, squashed pop cans, and acrylic paint on panel 11 x 17 1998

This collage is the frozen activity of God breaking my life apart. You can think of it as a "matrix moment." Stop action, the butterfly at the epicenter, swirls of glitter, and large red shapes broken up and cast away. Too wonderful to put into words. How Jesus dealt with powerful matters that shaped how I thought about myself and those around me. Mental oppressions, unrealistic expectations, and bitterness. Jesus does answer. He can overcome. He leadth me. I love glitter. At 54 years glitter brings me into the dazzling brilliance of Jesus, who is the Vast Intensity Joy Undivided.

Wounds Of Christ 18 x 12 mixed media

Your blood shed. Your death on my behalf.

you take the heaviness of guilt

On The Floor 36 x 48 acrylic on canvas 2001

I have come to trust the workings of jesus christ in my life.
In the picture deep feelings of grief surface from within and are released. The person beside is a faceless servant of jesus. The blue color around the hand indicates the touch of One so loving - so dear to me. After so much pain is pushed out, an atmosphere of rest saturates my being. It is the calm that comes from being held close.It is like being asleep on the bottom of the ocean. His response to me is
unusual and fluid.

My Sister In Prayer

Jesus es mi Rey soberano,
mi gozo es cantar su loor.

O Jesus, my King and my Sovereign,
my joy is it to sing him my praise.

this MORE
this WOW

Beautiful Fire
17 x 11 mixed media 1998
double click on images to enlarge

poetic

balloon float in Seward parade

Click on this link to see
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikesylwester/3579793237/

Dad used hula hoops for the four corners. With a walker in each hoop. He created a fish line grid, to which inflated ballons were secured. The rectangular float could be elevated by the front and back walkers moving to the middle, creating a 20 high arch.

everyone a student

A show of hands Sunday told me each person there had tried their hand at
art. In one sense we were all students with something to contribute. I learned that my Aunt Marie and her brother Rein had gone out sketching on occasion. It was a relaxed setting ...sitting on the floor, against the wall, or on sofa cushions.

One asked whether the works were done recently. Another asked, did I draw an outline on each painting when I was outside and then finished it up inside? Another inquired, what exactly was difficult about painting outside?

I talked about what choices I faced when I went outdoors with my brush.

River's Edge, 36 x 24 inches, unframed panel (above)


Levee, Looking West I, 8 x 17 inches, acrylic on panel (right)


Purposefully choosing locations that were down wind or out of the wind. Sometimes using bunge cords to secure a panel to the easel, so it would not blow away.

Skinny Dip Grove II, 12 x 9 inches, acrylic on watercolor paper (right)

The two hour window I had to complete a work before the light changed. Keeping an open mind to the results. Refraining from trying to fix an area of color...letting it be...growing to like it the way it is.


Landscape Composition I, 30x40 inches, canvas (left)








Each took a guess at what was made outside.



One went for a larger canvas over a smaller one."That big painting over there has less detail in it, because you were trying to capture the whole outdoor feel.

In contrast, that smaller one next to it has a lot of detail. You probably did it inside. You would have had more time to paint each individual leaf."
Closeup of Cox Bean Field, Carroll County, 24 x 24 inches, canvas (right )
Baylor Shadows, 12 x 9 inches, acrylic on watercolor paper, framed (left)




One picked a little piece
without a frame.










Levee, Looking West II, 8 x 10 inches acrylic on canvas panel (above)



"My guess is that something this size would be easier to paint outside."


October Sun, 12 x 9 inches, acrylic on watercolor paper, framed (below)











"I think it was Moss Creek," said one, "because you told us that you did."














closeup of Moss Creek, Carroll County, 8 x 48 inches, on panel (left)


closeup of Reimer's Hole, 11 x 18 inches, on panel (below right)






One pointed to the "impressionistic colors"
he saw, the kind one might see if you were outside.










closeup of Placke's Pond, 6 x 20, on panel (left)








One relative summed it up with this, "You paint each one outside yourself."



Thanks to Clark Kolterman with the Seward Arts Council. Thanks to my nephew (right), Mr. Incognito, for snapping these photos for me.
Family members seated (left to right): Reinhold Marxhausen and Jerry Lodwig. Standing: Kim and Paul Marxhausen, Karl, Dorris, and Marie Lodwig.

zany and fun

Today Marian Fortunati reminded me: that family laughter is a part of the mix, a valuable part of who we are as artists. Over Thanksgiving break, there was a traditional turkey meal spent with my brother's family. With the giggling and sharing of cat stories. There were newspapers and books to pour through at my parent's house and more chuckles over cat stories. The camaradrie and humor exchange between an adult artist /teacher-aid son and his journalist /bookworm mother. The "Spring Chick" metal sculpture in her yard (above left) aptly captures the riot of a good laugh. I can honestly admit that laughter and "funning around" is important between us.

Growing up under the Marxhausen roof has been a dance with literature. This was where I learned to love reading. My mother introduced me to "Sam And The Firefly." An adventure about an owl and his friend, whose tail light filled the night sky with illuminated words. She read books to me when I was young.
She loved to read newspapers and worked in the library at St. John's Elementary School. She loved to compose her thoughts on her royal typewriter with its carbon papers. Letters came to me the summer I worked in Galena, Illinois, bringing me up to speed on all the family news. She wrote letters to the editor and tried her hand at politics as well. Simply put, my love words came from her. Much thanks to Dorris Marxhausen.
What really defined the week prior to Sunday's art reception was hanging out with Dorris
...listening to new details about our family history
...cracking walnuts

...watching movies on the tele....
....and joy.
Yes joy.



Writing new time lines....
....catching up on our present lives

....students of mine reading aloud to me and counting change in class
....her and I relating the sparkle that comes with teaching

...circling Seward's perimeter by car...ending up at her favorite bookstore to peruse its shelves.....a blessing all round.