Seeing My Children Learn To Walk Years Ago : How Wonderful! It's Now Auh. 26th, 2011: Friday Waiting For Hurricane Irene!

This was a great period in the life of my wife and me. We got the fun and the scare and the wonder and the giddy joy of watching our daughter and then our son learn to to walk and to fall, to pick themselves up again and to also reach for things like the world-at-large all around them. Wow, what a " high " this all was for us. I'm glad that I sat down and drew this all happening from my memory often later in the night when all was calm or simply when I was away and had a few moments to draw. Cheers and enjoy. Please make comments if you would like to share any of your personal experiences. TONY

Anthony Quinn's Art / My Self-Portraits Done Over The Years In Various Mediums, Depending On What Was Handy At The Time / Enjoy!

I am doing so many quick portrait sketches of other people these days that I have not done as many of me recently. This was somehow a quieter time, more peaceful and less stressful and agitated. You'd never know by looking at these self portraits that I have done of myself.

I hope that you all enjoy these and that perhaps they inspire you to come meet me , and or do some portrait sketches yourselves. At the very least I hope you enjoy my approach to my self-portraits and the various styles and techniques that I use with various colors and combined mediums and sometimes all in one color or in black-and-white or sepia tones. Cheers.

Feel free to comment here below in the comment section at the end of the blog.

It's interesting how the various colors I have chosen evoke different moods and responses from us, isn't it?!? Hast luego, a presto, a la prochaine, until we meet again or for the very first time, Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn

Just Saw A Spe-Cial On The PHILLIPS MUSEUM / Reminds ME Of The MARMoTan / One Of My Many Watercolor Word-Writings Done In 1989 In Northern Virginia

Back in 1989 I had about a week on my own as my wife and our young daughter went to visit her family out of state and so I had time in northern Virginia to do my art work. It was an explosion of creativity for me and I worked all the time when I was not working to pay our bills by selling wine in Washington D.C.

I will have to look at this word-writing more closely and see when I did this one. I think that it might have been done a bit later on? I can't remember just now as that once that I started doing these word-writings I continued to do them and develop them for quite some time afterward. It was great. It was the beginning of a whole " new " chapter of art for me.

Originally I had wanted in those two weeks of 1989 to both paint and to write and so somehow it occurred to me that I could combine the two and both write and draw and create my art at the same time. I used pens and pencils and lots of watercolors as well. I was off : a new form of expression was born for me and now all I had to do was develop and follow it where it would lead. I was a willing participant in all of this.

Here is one that I recently singled out to share with you all. Being an artist and loving art and both the Phillips Art Gallery as well as the Marmottan Museum in Paris, France this is a natural word-writing for me to include here. Hope you like it. I will be including more as I go along. Cheers and stay-tuned. Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn

La Fete / The Party : One Of My Last Etchings Done In Paris, France ( 1979-80 ) W/ Oil-Based Red Pencil At Joelle Serve's Atelier 54, Rue Pernety, 750

75014 - the 14th Arrondisement ... the headline should finish, ran out of room!

I loved working with this oil-based thick red-colored pencil that made an image for me that was a bit out-of-focus/ blurred somewhat : like a great stone in-the-rough. I love the liberty that gives me when printing the zinc etched plate. The acid did it's job as did the red pencil and now I have my chance to do my job. You can see in these artist's proof the range of possibilities that my plate gave me to express different moods and different parts of each of the figures all gathered together in this place on my zinc plate. It sure was fun to print. I'd like to do it again.

These are just some of the artist's proofs that I did of this zinc plate. I wish I had them all here to show the total range that I achieved with such varied interpretations of the party scene depicted here. I liked referring in the past to the progression of this " la fete / party " and the passing hours and the getting later and more tired and more ready to calling it finally quits?

This image above is so completely " noir - black ". I like it : I like it a lot. Hard to see at first. It takes a whole lot more concentration to really see this party/ fete.

This was all done as I was pretty much at the peak of my printing and I was printing these at Joelle Serve's Atelier 54 now and really enjoying my freedom. It was such a liberating time for me and I was enjoying the experience immensely and working with many French students and aspiring artists themselves and they were very curious and very willing to try new things and to learn. I liked that about them. It was very stimulating to me.

I loved these color combinations that I kept trying. Many times it was like as if I was painting the etched crayon plate above and not simply rolling the rollers over the surface and printing it. Thus I had many artist's proofs to show for my efforts. I like that almost better, really : one of a kinds - many of them - and all so different of my imagined " party - celebration " with my friends and " Joke " our deaf Dalmatian spotted black-and-white dog ...

It is so rich what different colors can add and give a whole other ambiance-atmosphere to an image. Love it.

I used everything handy and at reach to make these from my blotters and my plastic rectangle spreaders of the ink into the grooves of the etched zinc plate of mine. Wow, the memories are rushing - pouring back in to me now as I type and remember. Love it.

Nothing like blobs of orange to make me think now of Thanksgiving as it approaches and the colder weather and the parties we will soon have with family and friends. Cheers.

A touch too somber above. Someone must have said something sad or off-color?

Ahhhhh, the joy is back once again. Happy party overall.

There was some intense, impassioned, gutsy and raw and heart-felt conversation, too at times as shown in the print above.

There was some peace and some ease and some reflection, too as displayed above. People all coming together in one space. Nice.

At the very end, time to clean up perhaps or leave things as is and say " bye byes ", go to sleep and deal with things the next morning?!/ Good idea, cheers, happy good-night, happy holidays and may we finish 2011 well and ring in 2012 with some great parties - fetes - all of us, Cheers, sante, hasta luego, untill we next meet, Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn

My Uncle Mort Passes While We Were Living In Paris, France Back In 1970's / My First Real Death In Family/My Etchings @ Atelier 17 William S. Hayter

This loss in our family of my mother's brother was quite traumatic for me at my age then. My family was living in Paris, France at the time at 93 Avenue Paul Doumer on one of the upper floors ( ? can't remember the number now ? ) and this touched me hard as it was the first real dearth that I had ever had to deal with. I liked my uncle. He and his wife lived in California and it represented another part of our lives that was undiscovered and fun and a touch mysterious? I liked all of this, I liked them. I liked their son, too - Sean or is it Shawn. Memory fades. He was an excellent polo player. You see : it was all one big fantasy for me of a part of our family that we saw infrequently, that always sent us cool things and that I wanted to get to know better.





Anyway, my uncle Mort passed while we were living in Paris, France, my father was working for the American Embassy as either the Consul of Visas or the Consul of Passports, my father and I were learning about wine visiting the Hediard and the Nicolas and the Cave De La Madeleine stores , my two younger brothers were going to the American School of Paris : and we were all falling in love with Paris, France. Wow, exciting times!





Here is one of my artist's proofs done from two etchings I did one smaller zinc plates at the Atelier 17 of William Stanley Hayter at 10, Rue Didot. It was a tremendously creative period for me and I wanted to reflect in my own humble way the passing of my uncle. Just as if he had died in a small village with dirt roads and open fields in France or Holland? I was very taken then ( as I still am ) by the work of Rembrandt, Van Gogh and the later works of Monet painted at Giverny where one has to walk back away from the canvas for it to come into focus.





I have done a whole series of these etchings and I will include them here as time permits and share them with you all. I worked at the time with one of those thick red crayon-type pencils that would leave broad and rough and undefined markings on my shiny zinc plate as I worked. O loved this : a bit nebulous : a bit undefined. It gave me lots of room to play with as I printed the plate in many experiments. I love to experiment. I love to have options. I love to push the boundaries and always have one foot securely placed and one dangling over, past an edge, precarious and free and a bit wild and taken by the elements and ready to go wherever both mentally and physically!





So, enjoy these two prints above and stay-tuned for more. I will add more as I have time. Cheers, TONY

My Artist's Proof " Freedom Of Choice / Choice Of Freedom " Black & White Etching 1978-79? Done At W.S. Hayter's Atelier 17. Paris, France

I did this while working at William Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17 ( 10, Rue Didot, Paris, France, the 14th arrondisement is it? memory fades just now ) and this etching done from a drawing reflects my conscientious decision to choose art over other business/ life styles, occupations, whatever. Actually, the art - my art chose me and to stick it out with me through thick and thin, hell or high water, sunshine or rain, cold or warmth , ... till we die together. I love it. This is a black-and-white artist's proof and I have the color versions as well. I will post those, too. In the meantime enjoy this and please feel free to comment. Cheers, TONY

Really Feeling the Loss When My Uncle Mort Passed Away In California & Our Family Was Living In Paris, France / In 1978?

This artist's proof on Japanese rice paper I believe I did in 1978 from drawings that I made into a zinc plate etching with a grease red drawing pencil back in 1978 was it? My Uncle Mort had just passed away in California and it had quite a profound impression on me of loss and grief and so I did a series based on this event. This image here above is of the burial outside in a open field : simple and basic. No pomp and ceremony here except for that of perhaps deep emotion and respect for a fallen friend, family member, pillar of a small community? I'd like to think so. Cheers and Uncle Mort if you can see me and this know that I miss you and am glad to have known you and had you in my life. TONY

My Art 2011 / Black-And-White Etching Titled : " Taken With The Grun-Tu-Molani " After Saul Bellow's Novel : " Henderson The Rain King "

I loved the novel by Saul Bellow called : " Henderson The Rain King " that I read while living in Paris, France in the late seventies after graduating from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland , Virginia in 1076. I took the school yearbook to finish as I was the editor-in-chief and my mother and my two brothers helped me finish it while I was there with them in the summer of 1976 and working at the American Embassy where my father was at that time either the Consul for Visas or the Consul for Passports. I forget now.





Anyway, I started to etch at the Atelier 17 of William Stanley Hayter of England sometime after that ( in 1978-1979 sometime ) and did this as one of the many prints that I took from this plate as I worked on it. This was the last state of the zinc plate I believe. Hope you like it. Cheers, TONY