2025 Neptune Poster Reveal

Incredibly honored to have my painting chosen as the featured art for the 2025 Neptune Festival poster. The opening night at The Dome was breathtaking. I’ve never been there and the VIP area and concert venue were so impressive. All of the support from the local community was overwhelming. Thank you to everyone involved in this massively volunteer group of dedicated professionals that supports the arts in our community and connects us all.

The painting was inspired by a photo I took at last years Neptune Festival at 5am in the morning just before dawn from the water behind my tent with my Aquatech housing and canon mirrorless camera while treading water looking towards the beach. Through my lens I could see the 24th street life saving museum as well as the tents along the boardwalk. It’s a rare day indeed to have actual surf during this event let alone such perfectly clean conditions during the early morning hours.

Posters will only be available from the Neptune Festival tent at the show in the fall.

The painting that will be the poster.

The photo that inspired the painting.

Some of the images from that day on display at the VB Surf Art Expo.

New project to be announced in July!

So…I have been commissioned to do a new painting that will be influenced by these photos and paintings. Should be very exciting. More to come in late June/July…

Neptune Rising/Acrylic, 36” x 60”

Photo that I took from the water that inspired Neptune Rising.

Another Neptune Rising painting, 24” x 36” acrylic

Another photo that inspired the painting above.

Another Neputne Rising painting…

Photo that inspired the painting above.

Preparing for the 2025 Art Shows/Exhibitions

Spent an entire day setting up the booth shots for this years applications. Most people have no idea how physically demanding or complicated this process can be. If you’re entering a show you need a clean booth shot with no furniture, no bins, etc. Just focus on the work. It gets even more complicated when you have two categories that can’t be mixed, so I have to shoot a separate booth shot for each in painting and photography. Here is this years effort. Hopefully with the economy going south with all these tariffs and Social Security in limbo we will have to wait and see how it all pans out. I’m hopefully optimistic yet realistic in my expectations, so for now, it’s “low expectations”. Time will tell.

Photography Booth shot

Right and back wall, photography.

Left and back wall, photography.

Painting booth shot.

Left wall, all new work never before shown in public.

Right and back walls featuring my “backlight Series”.

Back Wall…

Left and back wall featuring my Neptune Rising Series…

Coastal Virginia Magazine

I was delighted when David Uhrin asked to use some of my photos and some of John Wrights surf photos as well to highlight the amazing story written by our local surf pro, teacher extraordinaire, and just all around great guy, Jason Borte. Thank you so much!

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Challenges ahead...

Well, 72 years around the sun and approaching 73 this year but thank God the body is still working pretty good. It takes a bit more to do the usual things but the key is keep exercising, stretching, get the check ups and keep a watchful eye on your health and diet. The cold water has definitely been the biggest challenge yet! Even with the thickest gear possible the extremities get numb pretty quick but not until after I capture the shots!

John Pritchard still has the goods!

Quite a few shows going on this year too. With the El Nino the weather is going to be a factor, whether you believe it or not. The more shows you enter the better chances a few will actually happen and not be hampered by the weather. Best to be prepared as opposed to being sorry.

Hope to see many of you at the shows this spring and fall and of course, if you want any photos or prints just send me the image you would like along with the size and media and I can get it to ya. Thanks to everyone who has supported my paintings and photography all these years, lets keep it going!

A Day To Remember, Monday, December 18, 2023 Mega Swell

Rarely has Va. Bch. gotten surf this size or quality. This was clearly a day that was bigger and better than just about anything I’ve seen here…had to shoot from the beach because the size and current were just way too much for this aging surf dude.

Unknown rider dropping in on a beast.

Mark Barney getting it done and making it look easy.

Mark Barney

Free fall drop

Ice Cream headache on the duck dive…

Raging current pushing north

Style and grace

Snap

There were actually sets breaking out past the two buoys!

Meanwhile on the inside…

Two new limited edition 2023 Surf Calendars

$25.00 each for these beautiful limited edition calendars. The Wahine Rippers of Virginia Beach (all the girls) and the Storm Riders of Virginia Beach (the guys). Shoot me an email for payment and deliver. I won’t be shipping these due to costs so it’s a local thing for the most part.

Cover for the guys calendar, “Storm Riders Of Virginia Beach”

Thumbnails of the guys.

Wahine Rippers Cover.

So many Hurricanes!

Some new releases from Hurricane Ian and the resulting swells that just kept coming…

Leftovers From Hurricane Ian, Pendleton #2 ©10/06/2022

Leftovers from Hurricane Ian, Pendleton ©10/06/2022

Pendleton, Hurricane Ian Leftovers ©10/06/2022

"A Body Of Water" workshop for VA Art Teachers

Thanks Virginia Beach City Public Schools, MOCA VB, all the art teachers, administrators and support staff for letting me share with you my “Body Of Water “. The teachers made some great paintings and were totally stoked. The best part is every single painting whether realistic, stylistic, or abstract was just amazing, unique and different. Thanks for letting me share my passion for the ocean, surf photography and surf painting.

One of the art teachers pieces. I love how they were all unique and different expressions about the ocean.

Another great interpretation by one of the art teachers.

Intro with Marilyn Stewart, one of the presenters from PA.

She was born of the sea...

So, one of my friends and fellow art teachers/surfer girl Morgan Knight was captured in my lens recently and I thought wow! This pose looks just like Botticelli’s “Birth Of Venus Painting” circa 1500’s or so.

Known as the “Birth of Venus”, the composition actually shows the goddess of love and beauty arriving on land, on the island of Cyprus, born of the sea spray and blown there by the winds, Zephyr and, perhaps, Aura. The goddess is standing on a giant scallop shell, as pure and as perfect as a pearl. She is met by a young woman, who is sometimes identified as one of the Graces or as the Hora of spring, and who holds out a cloak covered in flowers. Even the roses, blown in by the wind are a reminder of spring. The subject of the painting, which celebrates Venus as symbol of love and beauty, was perhaps suggested by the poet Agnolo Poliziano.

It is highly probable that the work was commissioned by a member of the Medici family, although there is nothing written about the painting before 1550, when Giorgio Vasari describes it in the Medici’s Villa of Castello, owned by the cadet branch of the Medici family since the mid-15th century. This hypothesis would seem to be born out by the orange trees in the painting, which are considered an emblem of the Medici dynasty, on account of the assonance between the family name and the name of the orange tree, which at the time was ‘mala medica’.

Unlike the “Allegory of Spring”, which is painted on wood, the “Birth of Venus” was painted on canvas, a support that was widely used throughout the 15th century for decorative works destined to noble houses.

Botticelli takes his inspiration from classical statues for Venus’ modest pose, as she covers her nakedness with long, blond hair, which has reflections of light from the fact that it has been gilded; even the Winds, the pair flying in one another’s embrace, is based on an ancient work, a gem from the Hellenistic period, owned by Lorenzo the Magnificent.

At the jetty in July.

‘The Birth Of Venus”