Search My-West

"Informative and entertaining, My-West will be a valued destination for westerners and devotees of all things western. Well-written posts, evocative photos and fine art, valuable travel tips, and an upbeat style make this a destination site for travelers and web surfers. Go West!" - Stan Lynde, Award-winning Western novelist and cartoonist

PAINTING, PHOTOGRAPHY AND SCULPTURE

Entries in James Swinnerton (2)

Thursday
Mar012012

Image of the Day, March 1, 2012

By Donna Poulton

Jimmy Swinnerton painted in every kind of weather, the most dramatic being when dark-clouded thunderstorms loomed over the large buttes.  In Desert Clouds, Utah, the vertically developed cumulus clouds, common in the West during hot summer months, seem to emerge audaciously from terra firma.  In reality, cumulus clouds can hover as low as 300 feet above the desert landscape.

James Guilford Swinnerton, Desert Clouds, Utah, 1940s, oil on canvas, 22 x 34 in. Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts“I don’t use many colors,” Jimmy volunteers. “Two blues, one green, blue black, several reds—I’m finding all the time that it’s how you use them, not the number involved.  Light is superimposed on darkness.  You can notice that as the day grows long.  There are so many parts to a landscape that attention must be paid to all of them.  The clouds should float, instead of looking like rocks.  The sky should be air, not blue paint…” - Jimmy Swinnerton, from Painters of the Desert by Ed Ainsworth

Other Posts on Jimmy Swinnerton:

Painting of the Day, October 23, 2011

Sunday
Oct232011

Painting of the Day, October 23, 2011

By Donna Poulton

James Swinnerton created the “Little Jimmy” comic strip in 1903.  It was featured until 1958 making it the longest running comic created by the same artist. After leaving New York to recover from tuberculosis in California, he relocated to the west coast and began painting in the desert southwest.

James (Jimmy) Swinnerton, (1875 – 1974) Quaking Aspen, Flagstaff, Arizona, n.d., 24 x 20 in. Credit: Santa Fe Art Auction