Almost Wordless Wednesday: Lincoln Paintings

Civil War Lincoln

A Serious Lincoln: Burdened by His Calling

As a painter, it's well known I am fascinated with faces, and especially interesting faces. Whereas most Dylan fans are followers of his music and writings, I have found his face itself of endless interest. In part, he has permitted so many thousands of photos to be taken from his youth to the present, with light refracted and reflected from every possible angle so as to reveal the sculpted cheekbones, deepening furrows and such, so the face is always new, ever revealing and concealing.

It's too bad Abe Lincoln pre-existed the camera. Presidents get their share of photos taken today, but old Abe was an early candidate for that, back in a day when you were instructed not to move, hold still, and it would appear, "Be grave."

The real Abe Lincoln was actually a great storyteller and not the humorless mask we see captured in Matthew Brady's photos.

It would have been interesting to have a catalog of early Lincoln photos, to watch the progression as time and responsibility etched his appearance. But we don't.

Here are some of the paintings I produced over the years of our 16th president. You may call a few disrespectful, but I'd like to believe that in light of his sense of humor he just might get a kick out of them.

Blue Lincoln with Sunblock

Lincoln in Black & White

Candidate Lincoln in Pen & Ink

Lincoln with Impish Smile

Sunday Funnies Cartoon Lincoln

Lincoln Just Being Lincoln

"You can never escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."--Abe Lincoln

Seven Portraits from the Past

I still remember being fascinated by faces and drawing them when I was very young, perhaps three and for sure four years old. At age eight I began piano lessons which I abandoned after two and a half years. Books were also a part of my life, as was baseball.

So this is a reminder to parents that there is real value in exposing your children to experiences while they are young. You never know where it will lead.

I never took my art seriously after college, for various reasons that need no explanation here. When I began blogging in 2007 it seemed that one way to avoid copyright infringements by using photos and illustrations from others, I could illustrate by creating my own work. Up till then most of what I did was pretty much a form of doodling. It had no real purpose. You will find more than a thousand images here at my Many Faces of Ennyman blog.

My early interest in faces has never abated. Maybe one day I will try to paint yours.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Engage it.

The Lincoln Series: Now What?

The original photo.

I painted my first portrait of the 16th president somewhere in the early nineties, I think. Studying the events surrounding the U.S. Civil War proved endlessly fascinating, beginning in the fourth grade, that age in which we first begin to get a grasp on time and history and how the past is back there somewhere in the distance from where we're sitting.

Blue Lincoln with Sunblock

Our initial review of history, while superficial, is still useful. It begins sinking home the names of people and places and makes us familiar with key events. As we revisit these events in junior high and high school history classes, we begin to see a greater complexity than our early minds could grasp. We begin to understand how how conflicts escalated into wars, how history is painted by personalities, how power is used and abused, and the challenges leaders face when trying to implement a vision that is unpopular to a large portion of the public.

Lincoln Gets Gnarly

The pictures on this page today show the stages one of my more recent paintings has undergone. Originally titled Blue Lincoln with Sunblock when shown at my Beaners opening in 2010, it's now been retitled Civil War. Then again, "Civil War" has been the working title of all my Lincoln paintings. Who knows where this will finally evolve to?

Digital Lincoln Blue

In the upper right is a screen shot that I snapped from the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War. I'm fairly certain the picture, like may or most of this president, are now in the public domain, which is why they are used to pervasively in history books and films.

The painting has been evolving though. And I can't say for certain what it will evolve to, but the effects have been interesting. To paraphrase some advice I received when I was first learning to draw, maybe it takes a thousand bad Lincoln paintings to get a good one.

The following shows our most up-to-date iterations.

Y'all have a good day now, ya hear?