Your Bio

I am a retired art teacher who now devotes time to various art groups, creating new directions in visual art, painting and sketching on vacation locations,and being the past-president of a small Fine Arts Foundation and Gallery in Antioch,Illinois. I am usually a realist painter, but have ventured into into some abstract works that emphasize vivid color and some mixed media. My most recent works are matchbook paintings based on vintage 30's and 40's matchbook cover art. I hope you enjoy viewing my work. If you have any questions or are interested in purchasing one of these originals contact me at shuleart@aol.com

Galleries

Matchbook Art : These paintings are based on matchbook art from the 30's 40's and 50's. They were developed from a collection my father-in-law had had acquired as a young man and in his early years of marriage. I became fascinated with the concise imagery and the nostalgic flavor of the clip art used in advertising various products and services. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did creating them. All are done with acrylic paint and mostly all are done on masonite and a few on canvas and a few on canvas board. I have completed over 93 at this point and will continue to create more. All are for sale and most are about 10" x 13". Over 30 of these are 3-D as illustrated by the Portis Hats matchbook.

Matchbook Art

These paintings are based on matchbook art from the 30's 40's and 50' ...

Updated: Apr 07, 2009 5:06pm PST

Matchbook Photo Prints :

Matchbook Photo Prints

Updated: Mar 21, 2009 9:29am PST

Tall Skies : The "Tall Skies" series came about after seeing pastel works done in this vertical format. I have always liked that presentation and welcomed the opportunity to experiment with vivid colors in almost abstract sky compositions and then complete the works with vanishing farm scenes. I paint barns, cribs, grain bins, silos, farmhouses, tractors, crop fields. I have also used this format for some lighthouse and water sunset compositions. The farm scenes, for me, recall a time of a more laid back lifestyle.

Tall Skies

The "Tall Skies" series came about after seeing pastel works done in t ...

Updated: Jul 19, 2008 8:56am PST

Landscapes : This gallery has a little bit of everything in it. florals, vacation scenes, some more farm paintings before the "Tall Skies" Additional works will appear here as I update the site and go through my files.

Landscapes

This gallery has a little bit of everything in it. florals, vacation s ...

Updated: Jul 19, 2008 8:51am PST

Abstracts : The abstracts are a recent venture, the result of attending a watercolor workshop that focused on abstract work to loosen up the realist efforts. The early works of this series are based on contour drawings of real objects which are all transferred to a single sheet of paper. This design is then enlarged using a grid system to a full 22" x 30" sheet of watercolore paper. The end result is achieved by using various colors, values, subtracting and adding shapes, using resists, salt, whatever I feel like using that can make the whole composition hold together. I find them challenging in a different way than doing realistic works.

Abstracts

The abstracts are a recent venture, the result of attending a watercol ...

Updated: Jul 02, 2008 11:54am PST

My Smug Mug : Vacationing is something my wife and I do quite well and as often as we can. On these trips I usually bring watercolor supplies and a sketchbook to capture local flavor and to use for future paintings. The sketchbbook has developed into a visual journal with passages describing what we did and where we were to accompany the sketches. I paint what I enjoy. I used to tell that to all my students when I was teaching in public schools and continue to tell my adult painting classes the same.

My Smug Mug

Vacationing is something my wife and I do quite well and as often as w ...

Updated: Jun 29, 2008 5:14pm PST