That’s what Bridgette Monaghan said when she first beheld her new painting, “I couldn’t be happier.”

She and husband John had commissioned me to paint them at their favorite spot, that place they first got engaged, years ago. It’s Strand Beach, in Dana Point, California. Being nearby, we went there together on an early evening to get photos. That time was best for the low sun and long shadows. Afterward we sat on the rocks, selected the best photo from the camera phone, and talked about life. It was great.

Back home they selected the size that would work best, putting blue tape on the wall for visualization.  I got a custom canvas made and went to work. Two weeks later I delivered the painting, to their great acclaim and happiness. Actually this the eighth painting they’ve got from me in a month, large and small, with another major piece now commissioned.  Maybe I’ll show those another time. For now, their home is filling up with soul and art. And they couldn’t be happier.

P.S. I sill have one $100 Poppies painting if anyone’s interested.

5 Comments

I’ve got a painting available for $100. Who does that?

Not me.

Not normally.

But today I am.

It’s acrylic  on 100 percent rag, quality paper . . . painted with nice thick texture you can feel. Image size, 11×9, full sheet size, 17×5.

Here’s the reason. During last week’s online show my Red Poppies painting turned out to be very popular. So, rather than repeatedly telling people that it sold, I made some more. I was copying myself . . . and why not . . . I’m the artist both times! It gave people what they wanted . . . a nice original painting, great colors, with fluid brushstrokes in impressionistic style.

Today I’m making the same available to you. You might want it for yourself, or as a meaningful gift for another. Either way, it’s a great deal if I do say.

I’m in Dana Point, California. If you’re local you can pick it up. Or for an extra $10 I can mail it to you.

I call the painting Red Poppies, but as you can see, it has tinges of yellow and orange and coral as well. Each one’s slightly different; each one alive with vitality and zest. A happy little painting.

The photos here are representational. These are sold.  But I’m in the process of making three more now, all like these, but each is slightly different. That’s how it is with original work.

I can’t do this often, sell paintings for $100; but I’m doing it today.

After the three new ones go, no more.

If you’d like one of them, let me know . . . phone or text : 949-290-8643.

Either way, keep enjoying art, and keep your eye out for all beauty. It makes like better.

3 Comments

Hi friends,

Here’s a first, a show and sale that everybody can come to. Check the video for 16 works featured. If something interests, call or text me: 949-290-8643. Or email: moore@hyattmoore.com.

Besides the great prices, I’ll pay the shipping.  (CA tax may apply.)

The sale is on now through August 7. First come, first served.

Also, feel free to share this with others who might like it.

Check all the featured piece below. Click on each one for a larger view.

Five at Rest, oil on paper, 14×20, SOLD

Flamenco Grace, oil on linen, 12×22.5, reg. 1200, sale, $450

Red Poppies, oil on paper, 11×9, SOLD.

Calvary 6, acrylic on paper, 15×19, SOLD.

Shoulder Sash 2, oil on canvas, 24×17, reg. $1500, sale, $750

Nice Oranges, acrylic on paper, 5×7, SOLD.

Pears with Pizazz, acrylic on paper, 7×7, reg. $250, sale, $175

Laguna Shores, oil on canvas, 11×17, SOLD.

Rebecca, oil on canvas, 13×19, reg. $750, sale, $375

Delightfully Pink, acrylic on paper, reg. $1150, sale, $575

Eight Favorite Things,, oil on paper, 16×14, reg. $1050, sale $525

Lone Red, oil on canvas, 9×12, reg. $600, sale, $300

Lovely Lady, oil on canvas, 22×16, reg. $1500, sale, $750

Carol, mixed media on paper, 24×18, reg. $1500, sale, $750

She’s Home, oil on paper, 10×7, reg. $600. sale, $300

Faith Phenomena 5, acrylic on paper, 24×38, reg. $2000, sale, $575

3 Comments

Hello friends,

Here’s a first, an online show, one that you can attend without leaving home. It’ll be a new thing for all of us. Rather than setting up the house and garage for a physical show (the kind of which we will also continue) this one will be accessible right on your computer or phone.

I’ll be here in the studio, showing each piece individually via video, right out of this bin. You’ll be able to respond to me via email or phone or text.

So, watch your email next Thursday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

Featured will be a limited number of pieces I normally display in a bin. For that I’m calling this first one a “Bin Sale.” They’re all fine works, just not framed (well, maybe one). Some are on paper, some are on unstretched canvas. Best of all, everything will be on sale! Discounts will range between 20 percent to over 50 percent.  And I’ll pay the shipping.

The show will commence next Thursday, August 4, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. It will run for three days.

So mark your calendar and watch your email. It’ll come to you just like this one did. Included will be a video, with me displaying and describing each of the pieces available.  If something interests you’ll be able contact me directly and make it happen. First come, first served.

It should be fun. And who knows, you might find a great piece of art for a great price.

Stay tuned.  See you Thursday, August 4.

1 Comment

Hi friends,
Here’s a brief update on a few recent happenings. One breakthrough was the sale of two fairly large original works, sight unseen, via my new website. The images were seen online, of course, but it’s new for buyers to spend a significant price trusting that they’re going to like it when it comes. I’m grateful for this.

The first of these was “On Her Way” (oil, 37×26), a painting I did after returning from India a couple of years ago. The northern California buyer (I’m in southern California) discovered it online and inquired. I offered a money-back guarantee if it didn’t meet expectations. It did; she followed with a note that she loves it.

The second, “Rope Handler” (oil, 52×29), was another bought sight unseen, except online. In this case, the buyer and I had briefly met years ago and she has been following these blog updates ever since.  The painting is now well loved in Montana.

Here, just for a sense of size, is how it looked before it left our house. It worked perfectly with a couple of other western paintings and my saddle (which is there solely as its own piece of art).

Another piece that recently enjoyed attention on the new website is “Looking Far” (oil, 16×20), originally a gift to friend and author Ann Voskamp. She showed it on one of her blogs and suddenly the website lit up with numerous new buyers wanting prints, paper or canvas.

Here’s Ann receiving the surprise gift at the LAX airport drop off for her flight back to Canada. She’d looked long at it in the studio so I knew it belonged with her.

I’ve been mentioning the new website. Here’s the landing page.  It’s a work in progress and will evolve. One of the great offerings is the availability of prints, as well as originals.  Check it out here.

Anne is gearing up for another summer at the Laguna Festival of Arts. Here she is at her press in the studio where she’s been spending a lot of time of late.

And finally, here I am in the studio, that day working on a large city rain-scape, always an evocative subject. More to come on that.

Thanks for taking a look. Let me know what you think. I’m always happy for feedback and any conversation.

1 Comment

It’s a gem of a gallery
that few know about
hidden in a neighborhood,
a tract house transformed.
It’s our home,
from time to time open to all.

It’s sort of a Southwest look throughout . . . but then, we are in Southern California . . . and that’sboth south and west.

We’re showing lots of new work, and lots we’ve had awhile, like this treasure, Almost Night, just rediscovered and newly framed, holding forth in the living room.

Two new pieces grace the dining room. Near is Shore Patterns, and the distant abstract, The Future’s Unknown. That I have so many interests and styles gives visitors much to choose from. And then there’s Anne’s whole other offering of beautiful designs.

And here she is, arranging things, a lot of framed work on walls, and unframed in bins, here photographed without permission, I might add.

A corner of the room we call the office displays a number of new westerns. Here, Rope Handler is appropriately positioned near my saddle (for me, just decorative, a saddle being a work of art in itself.)

It’s a challenge to see the work displayed in this photo but you get the idea. It’s not really a gallery, but a home, with the artifacts of life integrated everywhere.

Finally (or firstly, if one enters this way) is the garage. Shown is a setup from an earlier show (we’re still working on the current one) but it’ll be something like this, and completely open air.

Realizing many will not be able to come due to distance, we still want you to know you’re invited. And there are always our websites for perusing. Here is the link to mine and the link to Anne’s. If you find something intrigues, contact us and we can have a conversation.

PS What with technological complications, I wasn’t altogether sure that last week’s blog reached everybody. If you indeed received this one, a quick response letting me know would help me a lot.  And I’m always grateful to hear anything back. Friendship’s always first.

3 Comments

Last fall my friend, author Ann Voskamp, was on a speaking trip and ended up not five minutes from my house. I heard of it and invited her over for an evening of stimulating conversation. She was impressed with all the art that overflows our house and I noticed she looked longer at one piece in particular. So, as she was departing next day for her home in Canada, at the airport drop off, I surprised her with the gift. The photo tells it all; she was overwhelmed!

That makes about a dozen of my pieces she has procured over the years. She included this one on a recent blog on her new book The Way Maker. People started asking about prints. So I’ve made them available . . . . in different sizes, either canvas or paper. They’re on my website here.

As with everything on the website, there is a viewing option for how something could look in a given room, even with options of wall colors, like the example below. Pretty handy, and helpful.

Take a cruise through the whole website, with a growing variety of options, at store.hyattmoore.com.

Besides prints, one can purchase originals right off the site, too, as one happy art buyer did yesterday.

Of course everything is available at our house, which is why we’re opening it up for a show. See the announcement below.  Can’t make it? There’s always the website . . .  if something attracts, send a note and we can have a conversation. We’re always grateful for the friendship . . . more important than art.

Comments Off on Looking Far and Show Upcoming

It seems fitting for the romantic holiday to host a show featuring my creative florals. A lot of flowers will be given that day; why not paintings of flowers? They can be just as beautiful and they last a good deal longer.

For the fun of it, here are some juxtapositions, mine with other classics.  Check them out.  You can click on the links for further info about each painting.

The show is both days of the coming weekend. Scroll to the bottom for the invitation and details. Realizing many can’t make the trip, everything is also available online. It’s all on my website here.

For the occasion everything will be discounted 50 percent from the website prices. If you find something of interest, let me know.

Now we know why she has that pleasant smile.

Tulips at Night, in its amazing frame.

Remember Claude Monet’s massive water lily florals? These are not them! But, like his, mine are definitely impressionism. And in this case, the pieces shown are appreciably smaller. See “Delightfully Pink” and “Delightfully White.”

2 Comments

14 Comments

Twice before we’d been to our friends’ small resort in northern California, but only for an overnight. We’d been invited to stay longer so this time we did, for two weeks. It turned out to be a glorious time and place for what we do on these trips, focused art-making, as well as taking in the interest and wonders of a new place.

We were already in the area, my having done a public painting at a centennial event at Simpson University in Redding. From there it was just an hour’s drive through light rain and abundant scenery to our next destination. Ahead, the Trinity Alps.

Near the top of the map is Redding; our venue was just west of there.

Fall colors were in abundance, along with lots and lots of green.

That’s our cottage, with the van parked adjacent, highly convenient for unloading all our gear.

We had barely moved in and Anne was already at work, which she did pretty much non-stop, but for evenings, all the 14 days we were there.

I took daily hikes around the area. A recent fire had swept through. Happily nothing at our friends’ place was affected, being well maintained (cleared of underbrush, etc.) and thanks to the firefighters. Still, there was a beauty in the contrasts between the burned and not burned.

Some areas were not so fortunate, houses and cars were in ashes, as well as somebody’s prize Harley-Davidson.

We set up in the small living room and kitchen and found the situation very accommodating for our needs.

Anne’s press is on the kitchen counter; we bring our own work table with extendable legs, good for standing at it.

Here’s my half of the studio, this taken on our third day; the space became a lot fuller and busier as the time progressed. In the end I produced 17 pieces of art, large and small, some of them commissions, others in preparation for our next show (announcement below).

Behind our cottage grew a beautiful Persimmon tree, the leaves as colorful as the abundant fruit.

I found the fruit to be great subject matter for painting, this one, “Persimmons Three,” is oversize at 12″x24.” (Click on it to enlarge.)

“Persimmons Four” at 12″x12″ is closer to the actual size of the fruit itself.

Then I came into a whole new way of doing small fruit still lifes on highly abstracted backgrounds: a yellow onion, an apple, an orange, a red onion, a yellow pear, and another persimmon. (Click the picture for a larger view.)

The spare bedroom was handy for space to set out works to dry. By the end of the time all four walls were full of Anne’s work, and the beds, and the closet.

One more of the majestic scenery, the Trinity River maintains its energy, its melody and its everlasting beauty, rising and falling with the rains and snowmelt. Some fish in it, some kayak or raft on it, I just walk the edge and thank God for life.

Greetings from us to you at the Trinity River.

.

Next Show

We’ll be opening our home and garage again for a great display of art and general friendship December 11 and 12. If you’re at all close, come if you can. We’ll be having an Internet sale during that time as well.

New Book

Check out my new book, just released, available on Amazon or on my website. It’s all about this young man’s finding his way, through all manner of adventures and turns, many long trips into Mexico, hitch-hiking across the USA just to do it, marrying Anne on four day’s notice (55 years ago), reaching early goals as a magazine art director (Surfer), experiencing anguish at the state of things, finding God, and starting again on a whole new road.  Click the link for more info.

11 Comments