This is a digital image that I created from a photograph of the sculpture “Cloud Gate” by artist Anish Kapoor. I used Adobe Photoshop to enhance and change the photograph to display what interested me while viewing this sculpture and the architecture surrounding “The Bean”. I took the photograph while visiting Chicago,Illinois in 2008.
Detail of Cloud Gate drawing
My digital art is based on a photograph that I took from the roof of a garage of the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth ,Texas. The woman pushing another woman in a wheel chair was moved to the left, closer to the building, than it was in the photo. I wanted to make a visual connection of the woman in the wheel chair to the angels.
“Fort Worth reflections a ” by John Foster Dyess
In April of 2008, while visiting our friends, Reverend Tim Carson and his wife Kathy, in Fort Worth,Texas, my wife and I were treated to a tour of the city and the well known stock yards. As usual, I began taking numerous photographs of our varied surroundings, fascinated with street scenes and the city’s architectural landscape. As I viewed the images on my computer monitor, after I returned to St.Louis, I became aware of details, subtleties, colors and shapes I hadn’t particularly noticed through the view finder. This was the creative spark, the genesis, for beginning a new body of work that I call ” A visiting Artist’s View of Fort Worth”
The Process
It begins with a digital photograph. I shoot what I find visually stimulating and exciting.
This is not only the item itself, such as a building, street, motorcycle or signage, but — the abstract shapes, colors and nuances found within the surface and contours of the subject matter.
I could be shooting from inside a moving car, from an office window looking out, from the top level of a parking garage or walking on street level. When shooting in familiar places such as my home town, St.Louis, I find there is such a personal association in my conscious mind with the buildings and structures that I am distracted somewhat from finding those true abstractions of shape and shadow in form that seem to reveal themselves in this Fort Worth series. Back in the studio I focus on the design quality of the photograph. I might intensify or mute certain colors or manipulate the nature of shapes, texture or shadow. I consider the final image one rendered as mixed media. Finally the image is printed on a paper surface and a paper size that best expresses my creative vision.
I have a long career as an illustrator and painter and I am always looking for a new process or creative outlet. I continue to combine traditional methods and digital methods in a symbiotic approach to enhance the final piece of work .
John Dyess
“Fort Worth Reflections b” by John Foster Dyess
“Stockyards cowboy” is another of my digital paintings, based on photographs that I took while visiting Fort Worth, Texas in 2008. My focus was on the black shapes created by shadows on the wooden fences.
This is another version of Harley Horses where I used a different technique than the image I posted on September 30. Both are based on a photograph that I took while visiting the Fort Worth Stockyards. More images of my art can be viewed at studiodyess.com
This is a detail of Harley Horses
“Harley Horses” digital painting by John Foster Dyess
This digital painting was based on a photograph that I took while visiting the Stock Yards in Fort Worth,Texas. The name that I gave to this painting seemed appropriate because the motorcycles parked on the street are the horses of the twenty first centuary.
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
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.
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.
“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
