The Plight of the Native- painting by dkeil (Douglas Keil)

"the Plight of the Native" by dkeil (Douglas Keil)  8x10.72 in. acrylic on paper

Generally, the story goes like this:

New Guys: "Hey nice land! You all have it made!
There's tons of game, the fields grow crops, the water is clean, and you have so much livestock!"

Natives: "Thank you! Yes, we have been blessed! We shall have a feast and be friends. Stay awhile. There will be peace among my people and yours."

New Guys: "Great! First let me show you my new toy. Everyone line up for me over there."

Natives: "Ok... Let me call the village together."

New Guys: "That's great.. now smile!"

"Bang! Bang! Bang!...."

Then, of course, the hunter comes over the hills to find his world burning, and his life destroyed.
He is angry, and then seeks his revenge.
Open a history book- most of the pages are about the same... in principle.

A lot of people hate Jesus because most "Christians" have been notoriously warlike over the past two thousand years. But certainly he isn't to blame.
He said to "love your neighbor"... but he also said to "love your enemy."
How can you love your enemy and kill him, rape his wife and little children (before killing them too,) burn his village, and steal his land?
The fact is that most Christians are phonies.
It's like me tooting my horn and saying that I'm a great painter all day long,
but all my works look like finger paintings.
I'd be a phony.
So, if you are a warlike "Christian" shame on you.
Seriously.
You need to learn who Jesus was.
He was a peacemaker, a teacher, a healer, a friend, a man of courage and kindness.
Certainly not someone who would destroy a native's village for his selfish and greedy agenda.
He was "no part of the world" and didn't support the politics of the day. His followers (Christians) in the first century are recorded in the history books as being people who refused to serve as soldiers or assume public office. The same holds true today.
Jehovah's Witnesses won't go to war, won't make the guns, won't sew the uniforms- for any country. That makes me proud to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course, a neutral stand often makes nationalistic types pretty upset, but at least you can know we're not killing anyone for our respective countries or our religion. On the contrary, we enjoy a worldwide brotherhood that truly is remarkable, transcending cultural and regional biases.

The current trend is to believe in oneself or in blind chance through evolution.
Both religious ideas are shallow. The science of probability shows evolution to be the godless mess it is.
We are short-lived and require instruction to succeed.
We learn from others; we have a need for that.
We simply can't figure it out on our own.
Trusting in one's heart is stupid (Proverbs 28:26) because we are imperfect.

The saying that experience is the best teacher is a lie. Jehovah God, the Creator, is the best teacher.
We make mistakes, even if we are really smart.
For example, there have been millions of smart, powerful people who have lived on earth over the years, but they only just recently figured out that the earth is round, the universe is huge, things are made up of atoms, and have accomplished feats like harness electricity.
Our power, ability, and smarts are limited.
We cannot govern even our own person effectively without moral guidance, let alone govern others.
Our power to repair the damages from past mistakes and foolishness is also certainly limited.
Attempts through history often leaves additional trails of suffering.

All the natives of the world who have suffered injustice at the hands of phony religionists will have the restoration of their lives.
Their suffering will be undone, according to the Bible.
That it very refreshing to me.

In the meantime, don't be phony!
Whether you're old, young, or somewhere in between, be nice and share!


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"theClockwork Man- the Jersey Shore statue guy" -painting by dkeil (Doug Keil)

"theClockwork Man- the Jersey Shore statue guy"  painting by dkeil (Douglas Keil)   9.5x13.5 in

I rode my motorcycle down the Shore over the weekend.
The weather was nice but my head hurt and I needed to get out of town.
There's nothing quite like the Parkway on a summer evening to straighten out a muddy head. If you're not on point, it won't be for long, because people have no concept of kindness on the Parkway.
So, needless to say, I got in the zone and ended up with my feet in the sand.

I brought a watercolor pad, my sketching box, and tin of Winsor Newton watercolors.
I've been giving watercolors a chance again though I'm not a big fan of the medium.
The first painting of the day bombed royally. Uggh. It was horrible.
I felt like I was ten. It just didn't work.
The composition wasn't all bad, it was the watercolors.
Of course the sun setting and my blindly mixing colors didn't help much either.
 I did see a great sunset though.

I don't give up easily.
I just couldn't live with myself after painting the worst sunset ever; I needed resolution, redemption.
A walk up the boardwalk to Asbury Park cleared my head to try something else.
Right at the beginning of the boardwalk in Asbury is the amazing Watermark establishment, an incredible example of interior design that I discovered only a week ago, despite the similarities with the Kyma Restaurant that I did design and finishes for last year.
I figured a Tom Collins could help things along.
I never made it to the Watermark on account of Clockworkman. 
Here's his facebook page.

I walked right past clockworkman as I'm sort of creeped out by the clown/mime schtick and I was going to do some architectural sketching and painting, but as I glanced back over my shoulder, the light fell so perfectly on the guy that I stopped in my tracks.
Seriously great lighting. I turned around and dropped my pack against the fence to the beach, sat down and decided to start with a sketch. I gave him some money out of respect for his art and within a half our I had one of the best sketches I've done in a while. All the while, the guy was bankrolling. Even ifhis gig is a street performance that requires good weather and has a short season, he brought in more than enough American currency to make it time well spent (artistically.)  I was astounded at how many people participated in his act and contributed, yet he kindly returned to the same stance and pose so I could record the night on paper. Mr. Clockworkman was indeed a performer and a gentleman.

I decided not to ink the graphite drawing and, instead, to give the watercolors another go. It turned out well enough. I took the plein air watercolor out yesterday and finished up the painting with acrylic glazes. I'm pretty happy with it now, which is why I decided to share it with the world.
Let me know what you think.

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"Midsummer on the Hudson" painting by dkeil (Douglas Keil)

"Midsummer on the Hudson"  by dkeil - Douglas Keil   2012  acrylic on wood panel   8.75 x 29.75 in.

(click on the photo to see it enlarged)

I had a great time up on the Hudson River this past weekend.
The Shattemuc Yacht Club in Ossining, NY hosted its 2nd annual Plein Air Paint Out and the atmosphere was great! It was a beautiful day for boating and and even better day for painting.
The event was organized by the commodore of the club, Coulter D. Young III. A man who, aside from being a quite capable adventurer, is an artist known for his quirky anthropomorphic robot sculptures and the definition of "cool uncle." I have to write a blog post about him soon.
He and his son have both had an enormous effect on my artistic development since I was a youth.

The gist of the event was: bring your paints, do your thing, and later in the day we'll have an auction.
70% of the proceeds went to the artists and 30% helped to fund sailing classes for teens.
There were about forty artists, and there was some excellent talent was on site.
I remembered a number of people from last year's event as well as many from the Garrison Landing Plein Air events, which occur further north on the Hudson. Stephen Doherty, the editor of Plein Air Magazine was observed setting oil to canvas and George Lowry of NYC's Swann Galleries and a regular on The Antique Roadshow was seen bidding in the audience. There were probably some additional celebrity art-loving-types too, but I didn't pay much attention during the auction process.

Driving down to Ossining in the morning, I wasn't all that excited to paint.
A thick grey gloom hung on the land. However, by the time I had consumed a couple cups of coffee, talked art shop with some folks at the clubhouse, and finally set up my easel, the colors were coming around.
By late morning the view was fantastic!
I shared a park bench under a willow tree with a sweet older lady, Roslyn Miller. We dabbed away at our paintings and jammed out to some old-school hippie music on my mp3 player.

Life is good.
Someone needs to make one of those shirts for the plein air painters.
Hmmm.... Any takers?

A great lady bought my painting; Sharon Rowe. She's the founder and CEO of Ecobags.com, a company which is defiinitely hip to the "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra of environmental consciousness. You can read about her success here. Besides that, she was sweet; letting me snap a picture of her with the painting to show the world that being a patron of the arts will make you smile!


Update (8-20-12)
Steve Doherty (mentioned above) published an article featuring the Shattemuc Yacht Club Plein Air Paint-Out on OutdoorPainter.com.
There is even a picture of with a picture of the painting underway.
Thanks for including me!




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You can buy a print of "Midsummer on the Hudson"
at my gallery on Fine Art America. It's super easy!
Click on the picture below and it will take you to my Fine Art America webpage.
You can buy just the print alone or even have it framed.
If you want it framed it's easy, you pick out the frame and mat from the many selections,
they assemble and deliver it within a few days!
Also they have a 100% money-back guarantee (including shipping) so if you're not happy, you can get your money back. Not a bad deal.
They don't mark up the print that much, if you want to frame it yourself.
My prices for prints are pretty much rock bottom, as it goes...
Support an artist and brighten up a room!




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