This Art Gallery has
been honored by more than 25 million Unique Visitors
from the Four
Corners of the Earth:
My
Friends from around the world thus far :
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England, Canada, Scotland, Wales, Ireland,
Germany, France, Monaco, Andorra, Italy, The Vatican City State, Greece, Macedonia,
Cyprus, Turkey, Belgium, Denmark, The Faroe Islands, Greenland,
Yugoslavia, Macedonia, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Luxembourg, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Austria, Romania,
Spain, The Russian Federation, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova,
Malta, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Sweden, Portugal, Albania, Armenia, Georgia,
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Gibraltar, Israel, Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Algeria, Niger, Saudi Arabia, Oman, The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco,
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Liberia, The Republic of Congo,
Rwanda, Kenya,
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Angola, Ghana, The Ivory Coast, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Nigeria, Namibia, Uganda, Kenya, Eritrea, Tanzania, Botswana, Malawi, Senegal, Djibouti, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, South Africa,
Viet Nam, Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong,
Macau, Mongolia, Mauritius, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar,
Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, Nuie, New Zealand, Fiji, Cook Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, American Samoa, Australia, Micronesia, Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, The Heard and McDonald Islands, The Philippines, Guam, Palau, Cocos Island, The Kingdom of Tonga, Malaysia, Brunei
Darussalem, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Chagos Islands, The Republic of Maldives, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru,
Aruba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Suriname, Guyana, Aruba, The Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, The Virgin Islands, The Netherlands Antilles, Panama, Saint Vincent & Grenadines, Grenada, Ecuador, Belize, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bermuda, Cuba, Jamaica, Dominica, Haiti, Puerto Rico,
Cayman Islands, Anguilla, The Bahamas, Honduras, Mexico, and my home, The Great Free State of Texas...
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If your home is not listed here please
e-mail us and tell us where you're from..
info@howarddavidjohnson.com
Thank
you for Visiting the Women
of Mythology art page...
Your business, letters, & links are
always welcome.
****
All images copyright
1993-2009 Howard David Johnson all rights reserved.
*****
STYLE and
TECHNIQUE
"Those who are enamoured of
practice without science are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass
and never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based upon a
sound knowledge of theory, of which perspective is the guide and gateway, and without it
nothing can be done well in any kind of painting."
| Howard David Johnson is a
contemporary visual artist and photographer with a background in |
| the natural sciences and
history. He works in a wide variety of media ranging from traditional |
| oils, pastels and
others to cutting edge digital media. He loves mixing media. This site features |
| examples of
his Realistic Art, including illustration, photography, experimentalism, and fine
art. |
|
Blodeuwedd & Gwydion from
Welsh Mythology
|
The various galleries linked to by the icons
above show many examples of His Realistic Art, and are grouped by theme rather than media.
There are also sample illustrations from his upcoming books on Celtic Myth and
Legend and World Myth & Legend. Since boyhood he has passionately copied the old
masters. To create his work, he usually starts with a thematic concept followed by a
rough realistic pencil sketch, then followed by his photography, often traveling to find
suitable scenes and locations and then working in his Photography studio with live models
from his sketches. He then assembles a variety of elements which are realistic and
original. As a boy he dedicated his life to art in 1960. From 1965- 1999 he used
xeroxes and tracings to make his preliminary photo montages. This is patterned after
the manner used by Maxfield Parrish and other 19th century notables. Beginning with a
tracing, he then draws or paints from these complex original Computer Photo Montages. Many
of these are on display on this web and slated for future completion in a variety of
realistic traditional art media. As this happens, the finished work is substituted in the
exhibit. |
| His
favourite medium for realistic art is colored pencil because of the high speed and low
expense, and people began expressing difficulty in telling his colored pencil drawing from
photographs in the early 1980's. In the last 35 plus years he has also mastered
Oils, Pastels, Acrylics, Watercolors, Inks, Scratchboard, Gouache, Photography, and the
highly controversial digital media ( Art Numérica ) . As a commercial illustrator Johnson has not only used the
computer to create art but has been involved in the development of computer imaging
software. Working in a realistic style inspired by classic illustrators HDJ is deeply
rooted and grounded in the Greco-Roman artistic tradition, Feeling that with realistic
art, the human form is the ultimate arena for artistic expression. His lifelong dream came
true when his Traditional Realistic Art was exhibited in the British Museum in London
England in 1996. His mixed media has also been displayed in numerous other ones since
such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Having achieved international acclaim as a
traditional visual artist he discovered digital media ( Art
Numérica ) in 1999. Because of his passion for realistic art and photography he
elected to embrace it and joyfully be a part of this historic era in the visual arts as a
21st century realistic visual artist. |
Since
1972 when he began his career as a scientific illustrator for the University of Texas he
has earned his living illustrating all kinds of books, magazines, CD covers, and all sorts
of games, greeting cards, calendars, portraits, murals and the like with his contemporary
realistic art... HDJ's Realistic Art has appeared in every major
bookstore chain and fantasy gaming shop in The United States and has been used in
educational texts and magazines all over the world. This site features realistic paintings
& pictures for the twenty-first Century including some oil paintings, as
well as lots of other exciting media such as colored pencil drawings, pastel paintings,
acrylic paintings, gouache paintings, watercolor paintings, and pencil drawings, and also
featuring studio, field, & aerial photography, digital painting and
photo-montage and all these media mixed in an assortment of experimental
combinations...Working in a wide variety of media to create his realistic art he offers
his customers a host of payment and product options. He delivers the rights to these
custom made copyright free illustrations and old fashioned customer service when he does
work-for-hire. He loves to paint custom oil paintings and accepts commissions with down
payments starting at one thousand dollars. On his existing works his low cost license
offers start at only 100 dollars.
*****
All paintings, pictures,
& text (c) 1993- 2008 Howard David Johnson All rights reserved
Thank You for Visiting the Women
of Mythology art page...
***** |
|
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ORIGINAL ART ART INSTRUCTION |
Bonus Section:
Personal Opinion Essays on Realistic Art
yesterday and today by the artist.
In addition to his mastery of
traditional media, Howard David Johnson now combines drawing, painting,
photography, and digital media with more than thirty years of experience in these fields
to create his Realistic Art Numérica in 21st century paintings and
pictures.
Did you know the Greek word
"Photography" means "Painting with Light"? Today with the advent of
computers it truly lives up to it's name. Due to developments in Art and Technology, a
broader definition of painting is needed than that which is found in common usage.
Announcing Art
Numérica
-an exciting merger of traditional visual art and cutting edge
technology... a new art form for the twenty- first century... Art Numérica is not
limited to realistic art but also offers limitless horizons for everything from cartoons
to abstractions.
It is the most dramatic
development in the visual arts since the Renaissance. In the words of Al Jolson in the
movie world's first talking picture" You ain't seen nothin' yet!"
"THE
MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME..."
(A Brief essay
dealing with attitudes toward Traditional Realistic Paintings, Pastels, Colored Pencils
and Art Numérique ) |
"Painting, in art, the
action of laying colour on a surface, or the representation of objects by this means.
Considered one of the fine arts"
~Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"Painting. noun. 1.) The act
or employment of laying on colors or paints. 2.) The art of forming figures or objects in
colors on canvas or any other surface, or the art of representing to the eye by means of
figures and colors any object; the work of an illustrator or painter. 3.) A picture; a
likeness or resemblance in shape or colors. 4.) Colors laid on. 5.) Delineation that
raises a vivid image in the mind; as in word painting.
~ Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
of the English Language
 |
Snobbism in the arts is nothing new. Some people will tell
you that oils are the only valid medium for realistic paintings. That Colored Pencil,
Digital, and other Realistic Painting and Drawing Media are not valid for
"real" art. Young artists, Don't let them bother you. Their forerunners used to
condemn Pastels before they gained acceptance and called them "crayons" when
Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752) invented them. Mercilessly disrespectful
art critics of the time could not stop the Experimentalists no matter how
viciously they
attacked and derided them. "Crayon-painting" as it was called in England was
practiced early on by persecuted pioneers in Switzerland and many other nations. What a
debt we owe to these master artists who refused to knuckle under to the pressure of those
short-sighted critics during those historic and experimental times. It took until 1870
with the founding of the "Societe` Des Pastellistes" in France that respect
came at last to these heroic & immortal visual artists. |
In England the liberation of the Pastellists from slight regard and
undeserved disrespect came with the first exhibition of "The Pastel Society" at
the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880. Pastel Painters like Mary Cassat and others from
America and other nations forever silenced the snobs with their masterworks and
gained recognition at long last for Thiele's invention as a valid art medium. I am
persuaded that history will repeat itself. Like Pastels, I believe these wonderful
new colored pencils and even Digital Realistic Art Media will one day
receive the
recognition they deserve as powerful mediums of artistic expression just as pastel
paintings did. What is your definition of art? Have you thought about it?
Mine is: "anything that
makes you feel or think."
|
 Pastel, Acrylics, and Colored Pencils combined |
The detail reveals Realistic
art and abstract art combined |
Consider
dancing... it can be a little skip in the step or rise to the level of the incomparable
Russian Ballet. Did you know that just the materials alone for a single oil painting cost
up to a thousand dollars these days? Even paying the artist less than minimum wage no one
but the super rich can afford them anymore. Something's got to give. Realistic paintings
in oil have been highly prized for centuries and the appeal and following of realistic art
is undiminished to this day. Oil paintings featuring Abstract Art and Realistic Art are
generally the most treasured form of all the visual art media and with good reason. But
snobbish art critics favoring abstract art have declared that realistic
paintings, or illustrations are not art for a century. With so many
representationalist paintings by so many immortal master artists hanging in the
Louvre, the Hermitage, and the British Museum and others I think the disrespect for
realistic illustrators that dominated the 20th century is academically ridiculous as well
as vain and intolerant, insisting theirs is the only valid opinion. What is your
definition of Art? I believe almost any form of human expression can be raised to the
level of "high art" especially visual art and Realistic illustration... |
 |
By my own definition of art, which is: "anything that makes you feel or
think" most abstract paintings are not "real art" to me personally,
because abstract paintings usually neither make me feel or think, usually focusing
obsessively on technique and avoiding any coherent content. I usually draw a complete
blank mentally and emotionally when I look at them. In 1979 the Houston Metropolitan
Museum of Art displayed a triptych of 3 giant paintings they paid fifty thousand
dollars for- three blank white canvasses entitled "untitled". Then there
was "The incredible new artistic Genius" with an I.Q. of 62
...Congo the chimpanzee
with his gala New York art exhibition...an elaborate prank played on the Snobbish American
Art critics about a generation ago by research scientists in the field of primatology.
Imagine how upset they were when he created one of his "ingenious masterpieces"
right before their eyes.
( My Source for this is the Time Life
Science Library volume entitled "The Primates". ) |
Art education has been almost completely removed from American
Schools as a result of generations of this kind of fabulous nonsense contributing to
America's cultural illiteracy crisis. Now, the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo,
and other notables are being removed from school libraries. After generations of
this, most American college graduates today cannot name even one living visual artist,
abstract or realistic.
There is no way that mandating
more math, requiring more reading, or scheduling more science will replace what we have
lost as a culture.
What is your definition of Art?
~HDJ
***** |
| Note:
Abstract Paintings by Congo the Chimpanzee outsold Warhol and Renoir
by over 25,000 dollars in June 2005 at a London art auction. Born in
1954, Congo created more than 400 drawings and paintings between the
ages of two and four. He died in 1964 of tuberculosis. There is no
precedent for this kind of sale. |
The Rebirth of Realism
More thoughts on realistic art
yesterday and today by the artist
Art History
has entered a new era with the birth of Art Numérica, or digital
art media in the 21st century. Artists never stop exploring with mediums. Artists have
been developing techniques, experimenting with different tools since at least twenty- five
thousand years ago, when the first artist picked up a charred stick and scratched a
picture out on the wall of his cave. You'd think everything would have been tried by now,
but it hasn't. Exploring new mediums this very day is just as exciting, just as full of
freshness and newness as it ever was.
|
The creation
of Realistic art has been the goal of most artists since the dawn of civilization.
Realistic art was the pride of ancient Greece. The world's greatest museums are full of
realistic art. Realistic art WAS art until the advent of the abstract expressionist
movement in the twentieth century. The coming of the camera in the nineteenth century
changed realistic art forever. Suddenly, realistic art was not the only way to create
realism in portraits and historical records. The work of the realistic artist was suddenly
made into an expensive luxury. The political power of the realistic artist was broken and
they were no longer an indispensable member of society. Hostility to the
creators of realistic art goes back to ancient times and the jealousy of advisers to the
Pharaohs and others who were not able to spend as much time with their rulers as their
portraitists. Although with the aid of photographs, realistic art achieved
levels of excellence undreamed of, the realistic art movement of the late nineteenth
century was short. |
None of these people earning their living creating realistic art could
compete with the speed and low cost of photographic portraiture. Determined to
survive, great realistic artists like Pablo Picasso ingeniously turned inward and began to
explore things that could not be photographed in a new school of art, abstract
expressionism. The day of the fine art superstars had arrived. It was now largely just a
hobby to abstract and realistic artists alike. Illustration, because of advances in
printing technology enabled an elite few to earn a living with their realistic art. These
illustrators working in realistic art media were condemned and ridiculed in much the
same way Europe's great symphonic composers were condemned for working in motion pictures
after fleeing the nazis during World War Two. The rift between realistic and abstract art
grew wider and wider. The universities and key media usually sided with the abstract camp
and derided anyone working in any realistic art media declaring boldly that realistic art
was not "real" art. |
Photography, Drawing,
and Painting combined-Art Numérica |
Immortal giants of realistic art such as
Maxfield Parrish were mistreated their entire lives. They were accused of selling out for
creating beautiful pieces of realistic fine art to earn a living. The attitude that the
true artist must suffer and starve and die in poverty became a rule. There were the
Abstract art superstars, the professional realistic illustrators, and the hobbyists who,
although cut off from gainful employment and social influence still recognized their
artistic gifts as a calling rather than a profession. Early abstract art masters
proved themselves as realistic artists before delving into realms of the intangible. They
had to do this at that time to prove themselves because of the challenges they faced from
the establishment for going against the status quo. In the latter part of the 20th century,
realistic artists like HDJ were challenged to do abstract art to prove themselves as shown
in the example above (Deirdre of the sorrows). Later realistic art training was abandoned
in most schools and things like splattering paint in fits of rage were deemed more
than enough. By the end of the 20th century something as destructive and
ridiculous as
nailing a pack of cigarettes to a shoe was considered fine art but not realistic
paintings. Fashions in art have often been as silly as fashions in ladies hats. As
the century drew to a close, many people had had enough. The realistic revolt was at hand.
The rebirth of realism was fueled by the advent of the digital era. Now, for the first
time in almost two centuries, an artist or illustrator could earn a decent living again
with his realistic art. This is historic. Realistic art is not going to go away,
especially now that photography has truly merged with traditional realistic visual art.
Photography comes from the Greek words meaning "painting with light". Now with
the advent of digital media the capability of realistic art has become almost limitless,
truly, "painting with light". The merger of all the world's art forms to realize
the potential of motion pictures has come now to still realistic art media. This website
for example, combines music, prose, poetry, photography and traditional realistic art
media to create an experience beyond merely looking at realistic paintings.
The twenty- first century is already seeing a
new renaissance in the arts because of the world wide web. There has never been anything
like it. Abstract art, computer art, photographic art, and realistic art are continuing to
be separate schools of art but are also blending to create exciting new horizons. Although
Digital art does offer completely new horizons to the artist in the 21st century it does
not mean the end of our time honored art traditions. Instead, it offers additional ways to
keep these traditions and schools of thought fresh and alive.
~ HDJ
*****
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Thank You for Visiting the Women
of Mythology Art Gallery of Howard David Johnson...
Music by Peter Ilyich
Tchaikovsky ( 1840- 1893) - "Swan Lake"
All paintings, pictures,
& text (c) 1993- 2010 Howard David Johnson All Rights Reserved
*****
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