The Ditching of Happy Daze

My good friend's father, John Keelan, was a B-17 Aircraft Commander in WWII and was lucky to have survived.  On his 9th mission, (7/25/43) after bombing the sub pens at Kiel, Germany, he was bounced by enemy fighters.  Out of control and with a wing on fire, he managed to save his plane and crew and ditched "Happy Daze" about 30 miles off the coast of Germany.  He kept the crew alive for two days until they got a free ride back to England courtesy of Danish fishermen.  I tried to portray his final moments before ditching, late in the afternoon, with the number three engine feathered and smoke pouring off the wing. I researched the markings for the 410th Squadron of the 94th Bomb Group and think they are correct.

Carel Fabritius

One of the greatest painters you never heard of is Carel Fabritius,who was a Dutch Baroque painter (in this case, Baroque really refers to the time period, because the Dutch didn't share much in theme with their brothers in Italy and France.)

Carel Fabritius's The Goldfinch is a small (think 8x10) oil painting, on board. It shows a Goldfinch, tethered to a feeding box against a flat, discolored wall.  The effect is a trompe l'oeil trick designed to show you a three dimensional image of the life size bird suspended in air.

Fabritius (1622-54) lived a short life, dying in the great Delft gunpowder magazine explosion of 1654.  He was the only one of Rembrandt's students to develop his own artistic style and was undoubtedly a great influence on my personal hero, Jan VerMeer.

My sad copy is the one on the bottom and I could never quite get the depth illusion Fabritius put into the original. (my colors are actually closer to the original than this image.)

Happy Birthday, Grandpa Lee!

A mosaic of my Dad, Lee Keeney, for his 87th Birthday.  There are 300 individual photos of Lee's family, kids, grandkids, greatgrandkids.  (many repeats)

The photo was made into a 3ft x 5 ft banner

You can see the individual photos a little better in this detail.

Katie

This picture of our daughter Katie, age 2, was my first attempt at a color portrait.  I used a white canvas with no gesso ground and simply made a detailed drawing and filled it in.  My mother made the dress.  Katie has been my best subject.

This picture of Katie at age 4 was a "Degas-like" attempt.  This is the picture my wife says she'd take with her if the house was burning.

Not a great composition, but a picture of Katie with unconvincing flowers, in front of our house in Virginia.

Katie, in the "royal" style of French Renaissance painter Francois Clouet.

I painted this from a photo I took by surprise, which is how I had to get many of  her pictures. She was reading and I liked the way the light fell on her.

Katie as a model for Renoir's "Girl Reading."  I started with a better likeness of Katie, but had to change it to make it look "Renoir-like."

My best portrait, Katie in her wedding dress.  The wedding had a Venetian theme, so I put in some Venetian bridges along a canal bank in Las Colinas, Texas. BTW, you can't make a wedding dress pure white, it looks strange.  I used all the colors in the picture in her dress.

36 Fighter Wing Reunion June 2011

Using a Google Earth image of present day Bitburg, Germany, I was able to make a realistic view of an Eagle making a vertical climb. The Kyll river valley is upper right. This clear day would have been rare in West Central Germany.
The banner for our reunion in Phoenix, June 2-5. Art work is from my painting below.

Because I couldn't find good art work of the patches, I painted originals using the original Disney designs.



Front of the 36 TFW t-shirt

Back of the t-shirt. The Eagle is from another painting (see below)

The Tiger Polos came out nice. It takes 20,000 stitches to make the patch and lettering.

I have a limited number of squadron decals to sell for .50 each

This original painting, used for the banner art work, will be for sale at the reunion.

I'm also working on a Bulldog version and hope to bring it.

This painting will also be sold at the reunion. Eagle attacking a MiG in typical German clouds. I think it shows the vertical ability of the F-15.

A mosaic made from several hundred photos of people and planes from the time I was in the Tiger Squadron, from 77-80. I hope to make another version from photos supplied by other Bitburg alumni.

A detail of the above mosaic. The yellow dots that reappear are Tiger One's birthday cake.

I'll be selling large Uber Alles decals for jacket backs.

Venezia

My wife and I are in love with Venice. Here's a copy of J.M.W. Turner's "Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore." Mine doesn't do justice to the original, but it's good enough to hang over our fireplace.

Another view of San Giorgio, oil on paper. This church, which sits on 2 million pilings, was one of the great

neo classical buildings by the late Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio.

One of my favorite Palazzos; Salviati, is on a side canal. The white frame is actually a medicine cabinet.

This view of San Giorgio Maggiore and it's island is done in pointillist. The "crackelature" wasn't intentional, it was the result of spending a hot day in a car trunk.

Fighter Aviation

F-16 loaded "wall to wall." This was painted for my good friend, Lt. Gen. Dan Leaf, who was Wing Commander at Aviano, Italy during Operation Allied Force in 1999.

A pencil drawing of me flying the A-7D, 1975. You can see the other planes in my formation in my visor.

F-15s over Bitburg, Germany, 1977. The shelters we're flying over are concrete revetments to protect our planes from the enemy. The Cold War was still pretty hot.

F-15 attacking a Mig in the early morning over Germany. This picture shows the vertical ability of the Eagle and displays the four Sparrow missiles and the four Sidewinders.

A rare five ship formation over Monument Valley, Utah. This was a photo op for the 405th Wing. I'm flying the second plane from the top, our squadron flagship.

This painting was a gift to our Squadron Flight Surgeon, Doc Rodney Cloonan.

Original Landscapes

Original Landscapes

Blue Eyes

It's difficult to do "head on" pictures of kids, especially with frontal lighting.

I "underpainted" the canvas with pale blue to make her skin translucent. The hair is impressionistic, using colors in her face and the background.

Oil on canvas, 11 x 14
















A mosaic of the painting. The small tiles are actually other paintings I've made.





















The girl's mother when she was about the same age. You see where she got the blue eyes.

"Girl With Pearl Earring"

Intending to use my niece as a model for "Girl with Pearl Earring," I took the photo below when she was 12. I finally made the painting when she was 18. She is quite a talented young artist herself.

Johannes Vermeer, master of Delft

"Girl With Pearl Earring"

A Web Album of Selected Portraits

Girl With Green Eyes

Reviewing family photos, I sometimes find a great image to work from. In this case, it was my niece's arresting green eyes.