Painting of the model Magnolia Strange

This is the beginning stage of a portrait study of the model Magnolia Strange that I did during a painting from a model session at Webster Groves Christian Church. I used Palmer Prism Tempera paint on a 16″ wide by 20″ high stretched canvas.This stage of the portrait study took about one hour an forty five minutes of time. I will continue working on this painting using photo reference I took of the model.

Detail of the painting of Magnolia Strange.

Photo of Magnolia Strange

Other styles of art and illustration created at Maritz in the 1970’s

Maritz Book of Awards catalog spread 1970’s by John Foster Dyess

This illustration was created using my illustration and a photograph of a model taken by a Maritz photographer. Created before personal computers and the software Photoshop.

sculpture by Maritz artist Mike Foley for Jewelry and Gifts spread in a Maritz Book of Awards

Mike Foley and I have been friends since college. We have worked together as artists for the Military Air Command, Bob Ruether and associates and Maritz Motivation Company.

another metal sculpture by Mike Foley for a Maritz Book of Awards,1970’s

sculpture of a Viking by John Foster Dyess 1970’s

I created this relief sculpture in clay, spray painted it with metallic paint and had it photographed by a Maritz photographer.I don’t remember the client.

place mat design by Jack Thorwegan Maritz 1973

Jack worked in the next cubical to me at Maritz in 1973. He was there about three months while waiting to start a design business. He had a very successful career and was well respected in St.Louis.

another design by Jack Thorwegen created while working at Maritz Motivation Company.

I enjoyed working at Maritz for eleven years and left,not because I wasn’t having a lot of fun creating illustrations, but because I wanted to start my own illustration business in 1980.I wanted to show sum of the creative art by other artists at Maritz and to show that some of this art still looks current.

Creating illustrations before personal computers

Illustration of pirates by John Foster Dyess,1970.s

I created this illustration while employed as an artist at Maritz Motivation Company. I don’t remember the name of the client. I believe this illustration was created in 1976,or 1977. I had several Maritz artist pose as pirates. The illustration  is  pen and ink and water based paint. The map was printed on a black and white copy machine , hand colored and glued on the illustration.  The pirate chest and money were copied on a color copy machine  from a book, cut out and glued on the illustration. Copy machines in the 1970’s and 1980’s ,for me, were a great tool. Now I would work traditionally on part of the illustration and then add the map, money and chest on a layer in Photoshop.

map detail from pirate illustration

pirate chest and coins detail from pirate illustration.

 

Caustic light

“bathroom creature’ caustic light photograph by John Foster Dyess

Here are a few more caustic light photographs I have taken recently. I have enhanced these photographs occasionally in the software Photoshop.

“light show” photograph by John Foster Dyess

“time to follow” photograph by John Foster Dyess

“corner light” photograph by John Foster Dyess

eye glasses photographs

I took a series of photographs several years ago of eye glasses and sun glasses with their shadow,taken from above.I’m sure this has been done by other photographers but it was new for me and not based on any photos I had seen before.

deconstruction and reconstruction of a photograph

shadow photograph by John Foster Dyess

I will be describing the process of deconstructing a photograph that I took of chairs and shadows and reconstructing it as an abstract design.

chairs and shadows cropped

In photoshop I used the filter Threshold on the cropped photograph and then inverted

I began to add color with a brush in photoshop

more color added

I added a a section of a wicker chair and a section of a clock from anther photograph that I had taken.

I copied the image in the upper right hand corner,flipped it horizontally and vertically and place it in the lower left hand corner

More color added in photoshop

“Chair Shapes” by John Foster Dyess

This is the final reconstructed design of the photograph

In a Box 3

“vegetable salad” photograph by John Foster Dyess

“vegetable salad 2” photograph by John Foster Dyess

“vegetable salad” 3 photograph by John Foster Dyess

These are three photographs of a still life of vegetables, placed in a cardboard box with a light shining through a hole cut in one side of the box. These photographs are from my series titled “In a Box”

In a Box-page 2

“Found in a kitchen drawer” photograph  by John Foster Dyess

This photograph is from my series called “In a Box”.For this series  I placed objects in a small cardboard box and cut a hole in in one side of the box. I placed a light outside of the box near the hole which was the light source for the objects. The camera was placed near the open side of the box.

In a Box

“Tin Snips” photograph by John Foster Dyess

In 2006 I took photographs of objects, I found around my house, set up inside a cardboard box . This photo combines a tin snip and a can of ginger-ale that I cut with the tin snips.

Observing and recording reflections and refractions

“light bird” photograph by John Foster Dyess

“bottle light” photograph by John Foster Dyess

“I can’t name this” photograph by John Foster Dyess