Sowing Stars and a Little Bit of Space Dust
Puccini oil on linen, 60 x 70 inches, private collection. As a pre-teen, I often felt an unbearable delight in things: There was a local sub shop run by a Sicilian man named Tony. Tony used imported Italian ingredients to make his submarine sandwiches, and the combination of rich flavors created an explosion in …
Joy Riding Decades ago at 2:30 a.m. on a back street in La Jolla, I was arrested driving my mom’s ’68 Firebird 400 convertible. I had our tiny mutts Nikki and Dinky as passengers. I was 12 years old. The feeling of driving was incredibly delicious. Riding home in the back of the cop car, …
It was almost the ideal art existence. As I finished the paintings and saw that they were forming a coherent whole, I experienced a pull to display them, which runs counter to the solitary life of painting. I was happy, content, and financially okay. Why mess that up?
Newberry Art Tutorials Light and shadow are two of the most challenging problems facing a painter. Painters can't harness real light and shadow; instead they must rely on subtle gradations of color to create the illusion. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1634. Galleria degli Uffizi In general, I use "light" in painting to mean all those areas which …
Portrait of Duchamp, ink on paper, 5 x 5"
The experience of the sublime is to be looked for in art. Art integrates senses, emotions, and thought. The sublime in art elevates our sensory experience, heightens and taps our emotional potential, and furthers our knowledge. The sublime in art can give us a moral to the story, a stance towards living. At its best, the sublime in art inspires awe in our human potential and gives us a path to evolve as a whole being and as a species. Michael Newberry
Grateful, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches. In the last year I have been feeling grateful for friends, the beauty of Idyllwild, the ability to create so freely, and being in the right place to enjoy them all so much. How does an atheist find images to express that? These overlapping hands had an …
Michael Newberry 