The Cowboy Artist

Paul Jones is a man who loves his freedom and also to paint.

He specializes in the Western style, using the cowboys and Indians of yesteryear to inspire art that seems to jump out and bedazzle the viewer, transporting them to a time when the iron horse was king and the West was still wild.

Jones winters with his wife, Cheryl, in Yuma and spends the summers traveling to art shows to promote his work. He spent more than three decades as a professional photographer and has worked with clients such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. He was very successful, but left that world behind to follow his passion for paint.

"I was a photographer for 35 years, and I called myself a closet painter. I painted on the side, and some of my best friends had no clue. I sold my (photography business) 15 years ago and my wife and I went on the road and traveled and I started messing with my art again."

Jones said he had no idea his art would do so well.

"We were living in a bus conversion ... and it became apparent we needed a bigger location, which brought us to Yuma. I am fiercely independent, which is one of the reasons I am in Yuma. We like the laid-back living style, and we live here very relaxed."

Jones said it was in Yuma where he started painting and really got into it.

"Six years ago, before we left for the summer, my wife and I sent off a lot of slides to (national) shows. When we came back from summer vacation, I had entered five shows and had been accepted in all five shows, and we said uh-oh, we’re in business."

Jones said he planned to sell his paintings over a period of five years but ended up selling them in just two.

Many of the big players in the art game helped him get a foothold in the industry, he said.

"My work is an evolution, and I know how much I have changed just in the last six years of furious painting. I am just now gaining my strength.

"An artist has to learn how to own their palette, and I didn’t for the longest time. Taking a palette and putting it on the canvas is a whole different thing. You have to learn how to control it and lift the paint, the weight of the paint and the weight of the brush."

Jones said some of the professional painters in the business gave him a few pointers along the way.

"I have been very fortunate to meet some of the great painters during these very short years. These are the guys who said, 'No-no-no, you are doing this right but you are painting like it is a tube of toothpaste.'"

Jones said being stationed in the Midwest while in the military inspired his taste for Western art.

"I think every boy wants to play cowboys and Indians some time, and when I went in the service I was living in Missouri. The first place I was deployed to was Rapid City, South Dakota, and everybody said, ‘Where the hell is that at?’ and I said well I don’t know but it's West.

"To me it was just ideal. I got out there and ran into the cowboys and Indians, which was very strange to me, but I loved it and fell in with the guys."

Jones said he enjoyed accompanying cowboys on trail rides.

"I was not one of the main guys, I just went along with it and shot pictures, and the deal was if I didn’t fall off the horse or get on it backwards, I was allowed to ride. I was not a wrangler. I can make pretty good coffee, but me with a rope might be a little bit dangerous, especially on top of a horse."

Jones likes to take a photograph of his subjects to use as a guide for his paintings later on.

"It is the best note-taker in the world. Artists of all types use whatever tools are available. A lot of people like to paint on location at the time and say the use of a camera is a crutch. I will argue that my camera is a very strong tool in my arsenal. I’ve used it all of my life, and I think I use it pretty efficiently to get what I want."

Jones said with a camera, he can capture the inflection of a horse's movements in ways he wouldn't be able to get otherwise.

"I use the photographic image to give me details and information, but it is my brush strokes which are laid down on the raw canvas that make it a piece of artwork and make it mine.

"It's not even my photo afterwards but is in a totally separate world. It's how I feel about it. Art is whatever you want to bring to the medium, and however you got it there is your own business."

Jones said he can become very animated as he paints.

"When I am really excited about a larger painting and I'm moving, my wife will say that I dance when I paint. I love to invent stuff as I am going along, and the mood and the dance is part of it."

Jones said some features are harder to paint than others.

"Faces are difficult if you are trying to capture the person (in the photo) exactly, but they become a lot easier for me when ... I'm just using them as a reference. I've found if you add just a little bit of eyebrow or a little arch, you can make a guy look wicked.

"I will also trim down the jowls because no one wants to admire a fat cowboy or a fat Indian. My paintings are not a portrait of specific people by the end."

Jones said he dabbles in abstract art on occasion.

"People say I paint very realistically but I really enjoy an abstract painting. It is a different language. I'll paint an exact face or an exact horse, but the background is very abstract. I don't want it to be a (specific) location. I don't want to insult the viewer. Let them put it wherever they want to."

Jones is very humble when it comes to his art.

"I guess every painter has an ego, but I have no visions of grandeur that people will discover the genius in my paintings or anything else."

---
Chris McDaniel can be reached at cmcdaniel@yumasun.com or 539-6849.

MORE INFO

• Call 1-602-321-6847

• Go online to www.pauljonesart.com