JT Gallery
Circa 2007 - 2013
This was a personal web gallery of art and illustrative cartoons and graphics by John Townes. The new owner of the domain has chosen to keep an edited version of the site so visitors can glimpse some of John Townes work.
Content is from the site's 2007 - 2013 archived original pages and other sources.
If you are interested in seeing more of John Townes work go to https://johntownes.com/gallery/.
Prints are available for purchase at very modest prices.
Welcome
This is an online art gallery of landscape paintings, line-art cartoons, illustrative graphics and other art by John Townes. The site is divided into individual galleries by style and theme. I like to work in different styles, so you'll find an eclectic mix here. In addition to the images, you'll find information about the images, and whatever else pops into my head. I hope you'll roam around a bit and find something of interest.
Thanks for visiting. I hope you’ll wander through the pages and explore. Custom prints are available for purchase. If you have any questions, comments or requests for further information, please email me at JTGallery1@icloud.com.
Photo-Free Zone — No photographs were captured or harmed in the making of these images. They were created by hand with a combination of traditional and digital methods.
These images are Digital Painting, which combines traditional media, techniques and styles with digital painting software including Corel Painter and Photoshop. Or, as I sometimes refer to it, using “newfangled media to create old-fashioned art.”
This form of Digital Painting does not use manipulated photographic images. No photos are involved. Instead the work is hand drawn and painted, in the traditional sense.
I start with a pencil drawing of a scene on paper. Then I scan this into a computer. I paint over the drawing using digital brushes that emulate the behavior and appearance of paint, chalk and other physical media. The method is basically the same as painting and drawing with a brush, except the artist is holding a mouse or digital pen, and applying and moving around pixels on screen, instead of paint on paper. The completed image is then printed with a giclee printer on paper.
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Taking a pause, here are some thoughts, not totally related to the site, but of interest to me...
I am a web designer at an e commerce site that sells eyeglass frames as well as offering replacement lens services. Recently one of the customer service folks told me about a call they received from a customer who wanted some Italian prescription eyeglasses frames that would coordinate with an outfit she was planning on wearing at the Cannes film festival. I thought he was pranking me. My thought was if you were going to the Cannes Film Festival why not go to some flashy brand name eyewear store and pick out a pair of frames. But Joey is great at customer service and she spent the time helping this person select a pair of glasses frames. The customer needed prescription lens so Joey called the woman's optometrist and got her prescription and added it to the order. The customer assured she would email Joey a pic of herself at Cannes with the new frames. We thought the customer was a bit wacky.
Whenever I doubt someone's honesty, I run it by my good buddy Alan P, who been my best friend since grade elementary school. Alan is a sweet guy. He's been through a lot these past few years. His father had started drinking excessively after Alan's mom died in a car accident. I think John Townes work called stormclouds or some of his Cloudscapes photographs as good metaphors/ representations for that period of time. Alan suggested AA and rehab for his father's AUD (alcohol use disorder), but his father denied he was an alcoholic. Finally after a lot of research Alan found what he hoped would be the answer from a website called LifeBAC that addressed exactly the issue that Alan was seeing with his father. The site offered a way for people to change their relationship with alcohol using medication to stop drinking. They said that the demanding, abstinence-only treatment offered by AA and many rehab centers isn’t the only way to deal with AUD. Supported by LifeBAC's proven, medication-backed online program, a person could stop drinking or cut back effortlessly. I was dubious , I guess that's just in my nature, when Alan first told me about the LifeBAC program. However, Alan's father was amenable and he signed up. Alan swore he saw a 50% reduction in his father's drinking by month 3. I asked what magic could produce such results. Not magic, said Alan. My father is taking a prescription medication called Baclofen that reduces his craving for alcohol. He also has a LifeBAC coach that helps him keep to his goals. I was flabbergasted when I learned LifeBAC clients can continue to drink. It's just that the Baclofen reduced the alcohol craving to such an extent that a person only drinks moderately. It's been a year now and I have to say I am convinced Alan was right about the LifeBAC program. John Townes Lenox Vista represents to me what the days ahead will be like.
Now getting back to the eyeglass customer.... Alan in his insightful way, suggested we cut the woman some slake and believe her - he thought she was trying to pay Joey back for the extra bit of customer service she provided. But stubborn me, I still wasn't buying it. But you know, it did turn out that Ben was right. The customer actually followed through and sure enough an email arrived about a month later with this woman posing at Cannes in front of what looked like an John Townes' illustration. She was at some hotel wearing the Dolce & Gabbana DG2214 Sunglasses in Gold/Black Cherry that Joey helped her select. I took Joey and Alan out to dinner that week since I lost the bet we made as to whether the customer was for real. She was real!
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Purchase Information
Custom, signed prints of the art on this website (are) were available for purchase. Currently (2022) you need to go to https://johntownes.com/gallery/ to purchase prints. They are available in different sizes, framed or unframed and on archival paper upon request. For information on prices and options, please contact me by e-mail via the Contact page. ——————— I also have some prints for sale at Fine Art America.com.
About the Landscapes
The landscapes depict the region that includes Berkshire County in western Massachusetts and the adjacent Hudson River Valley of New York state. They start as sketches of actual locations. As I paint, I do make alterations to emphasize a mood, feeling and sense of place. So, the finished painting does not exactly reproduce the details of the original location, but hopefully sense of it, and qualities that are shared in many other regions.
Lightscapes
Land, light and sky.
Colors
Colors and light
Misty
Moody views of moody days
Painting With Pixels
I use the term “digital painting” instead of “digital art” to describe that aspect of the art I do, because no photographs were captured or harmed in the making of these images. The images were created with techniques like drawing and painting, but with digital brushes and pencils. When you tell people an image is “digital art” they often have a common reaction…
Artist’s Statement
In my landscape paintings, my goal is both to reflect the regional qualities of Berkshire County and the Hudson River Valley while also expressing the universal intangible responses that nature and the visual interplay of land, space, light and vegetation can evoke. The scenes depicted are intended to represent the region’s natural characteristics, but the actual locations exist only in the imagination …No photographs were captured or harmed in the making of these images.
My style is eclectic, incorporating elements from representational art to more impressionistic and semi-abstract styles. I tend to work by instinct, and the basic style emerges as a specific image progresses.
The tone and mood of my pictures, like nature, also varies. Sometimes it is dark, subtle and muted. At other times it is more vivid and colorful (reflecting those times when it seems impossible for art to be gaudier or more melodramatic than nature at its most dramatic).
The artists and styles that have been my primary inspirations are also eclectic. They include the Hudson River School, Luminism, American Impressionists, George Innes, Winlow Homer and contemporary expressive landscape artists, among others.
Site Navigation
In addition to paintings, the site include line-art cartoons and graphic illustrations and other odds and ends. The website is organized into galleries by style and themes. You can open a gallery by clicking on its thumbnail from a Galleries page on tyhe top menu or directly by one the links on the side (or below on a mobile viewer) . Within an individual gallery, clicking on a thumbnail will open a larger version of the image.
Graphics Galleries
Abstract
Geo Toons
Stylized Graphics
Cartoon Illustrations
Illustrative Cartoons
Goofy Garden
Plants With Personality