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2008


Boeckhorst Wall Project
Museum and Gallery at Heritage Green
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Jan
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Autumn at Giverny
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Poppe and Little Jake
Work in progress July 2008
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2007

The Day Dreamer
"Lost in Thought"
2nd day's progress
Nov 2007
I am attempting to capture some of my ideas in small studies before time deletes them from the gallery of my imagination. This one is 10" x 8". I may convert this one to life size when I have time. I must put this and my other petite genre portraits aside soon as I have a project due for a Museum in 2008. I am looking forward to it because I will have the opportunity to copy an artist associated with Ruben's studio. When the project is finished, I will post the results and invite the whole world to attend the grand-opening of the exhibit. The child in me is awestruck that once again I will have my work displayed in a museum with the Masters...

Jackson
September/October 2007
10" oval Oil on Canvas
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Underpainting of Livia
(A few hours of "just for fun" painting on a
Saturday afternoon)
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When Livia's portrait is finished,
I think I will call it "Reflections in Flower Light" Spring 2007
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Livia
"Bud Trunick "
January 28, 2007
I can't believe how bad my beginning underpainting was or that I had the nerve to post it. I tend to see things as they will be, not as they are. As of February 24th, thanks to my client's son, a computer whiz, I now know how to get my photo from the camera to the web site without it falling apart. I'm sure there's a term for that phenomenon.
February 11, 2007
Still in the planning stage ... I love paintings with stories. I suppose it must be the child in me. The painting keeps evolving in my mind as I learn more about my client.
Originally, I had planned to include one of the machines that he had designed. I may still do so, but not in the desert....wait and see.
I chose this location for the painting's background because my client and his family greatly enjoyed their two year stay in Arizona. From what I understand, it was also a project for which he is still remembered in the engineering field...Have you noticed the magazine in his hand?

"Bud"
March 30, 2007
See comments below detail.

Detail from portrait of Bud Trunick
Desert Drama Remembered
Copper by Belt at Twin Buttes
Bud Trunick, Civil Engineer:
Mr. Trunick's specialty was and is "bulk material handling"...what an understatement!!! In material handled, the volume at Twin Buttes was nearly twice that of the Oroville Dam project in California and ranked alongside the famous Aswan High Dam in Egypt. Bud Trunick is remembered for his participation in both the Oroville Dam project with Mcdowell Wellman and the Twin Buttes project with Hewitt-Robins. Out in the Arizona Desert, a handshake between Trunick and Anaconda Company president, Jack Knaebel, sealed Hewitt Robbins $10,000,000.00 participation in the Twin Buttes project. In 1966 and 67, Trunick was Hewitt-Robins' estimator, salesman, engineer and site project manager.
The Hewitt-Robins complex at the south end of the Anaconda copper mining pit was engineered to move both overburden and ore, either separately or simultaneously. It was composed of two side-by-side, sixty inch conveyors that sloped to the bottom of the pit... At a little more than halfway down into the pit, two other sixty-inch conveyors split off obliquely from either side of the main conveyors. In all more than 50,000 feet of Hewitt-Robins steel cable reinforced rubber belt were employed on the mining project at Twin Buttes...Thus "Copper by Belt" as indicated on the magazine cover in Mr. Trunick's hands.
At the top of the magazine, I have dated and aged the magazine to further reference this special time period in Mr. Trunick's past. When the portrait is signed and dated 2007, it will establish that this is Mr. Trunick - forty years after Twin Buttes...As Mr. Trunick approaches his eightieth year, he continues to solve engineering problems across the country. Armed only with a calculator, graph paper, and a pencil, he and his creative mind are still in demand by others with computers and a lot more letters after their name. Note: I may expand on this as I continue to work on the portrait and learn more about Mr. Trunick.
Artist Note: After struggling for thirty minutes trying to write Desert Drama on the magazine cover, I realized, I had written "Dessert Drama" and had to start over....That not quite as bad as the six toes that I painted on a goddess in a Botticelli Reproduction ...not once but twice.
April 5, 2007
The portrait is not finished yet , but I like the simple 22 gold leaf frame that Mr. Trunick chose.
May 5 th, 2007 AM
Mr. Trunick is a patient client, and I'm back to working on his portrait. He was away for a month and I needed the time to touch up a painting that was being displayed at the Miracle Hill Annual Banquet ...Click on Features and Events to view "Fraternal Love".
For the past week, I have been working on his face and the foreground. Believe it or not, I really do want to finish this portrait. There are so many other paintings waiting in the gallery of my imagination...two of them involve Mr. Trunick. He is a terrific character study...I plan to use him as a model for a couple of portfolio paintings...He can add "professional model" to his exceptional resume'.
May 5th PM
Fine tuning the details
Mr. Trunick looks like he could get a job modeling for Levi

Robert "Bud" Trunick"
July 5th, 2007
I've simplified and lightened the folds on the shirt and added lighter
values near the face. Contrasting values draw attention and I want the viewer to
"read" the face first and then to examine the painting more closely for clues that tell you about the man in the desert.
I plan to sign the painting next week...It's almost time to let it go.
Grannie Holliday and the Last Quilt
In Progress
Oil on canvas 12 x16
June 2007
Grannie Holliday and the Last Quilt
Grannie has been gone a long time now... She always smelled like homemade biscuits and her "cushiony" lap felt like love...

Quilting Toward the Light
(Formerly called "Grannie Holliday and the Last Quilt")
Progress as of February, 2008
Sit down at the Rocky Creek Cafe
August 2007
This "petite" character study is 11x14
(Do you recognize my model?)
Stay Tuned
Considering the concept of artistic license and a woman's prerogative to change her mind, there will be more changes. I am trying out a commercially prepared surface. So far it has stood up rather well to the changes.
Sit Down at the Rocky Creek Cafe
Are you looking at him ...or is he looking at you?
Progress August 17, Septempber 8, May 2008
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Giovanni's Palette
Giovanni's Palette
11 x14Oil on Panel
(L-Work in Progress thru September 8, 2007: R- thru September 16, 2007)
When I have time, I will tell you the painting's story. I think you will find it interesting. My subject, a retired museum guard, was living in the left wing of the Accademia Carrara Museum in Bergamo, Italy, when I met him in 2005
2006