Welcome to this website showcasing some of my paintings. Before you go inside, you should know that my purpose inviting you is not to try to sell you anything; indeed, many of the paintings shown here are already in private collections, and another batch of them features our children and grandchildren and are for our walls only. What I encourage you to do is browse through the several galleries in the site, and if anything strikes you as particularly good–or bad–take a moment to drop me a note telling me what you thought.
You may be interested to learn that I am not the only one in my family who has taken pleasure from art. My sister, an accomplished painter and singer, teaches art in the West Virginia public school system. You can see some of her beautiful work in www.maryannehaines.com.
My Dad, a career US Naval officer, was a wonderful water colorist, and his father, my grandfather, thought oil painting was so easy that he gave it up at an early age in favor of the intricate and detailed carving of figures from wood.
At some point, I will add to this site some examples of the talent of these other Haines artists.
Everything you need to know about me is in the biography section of this site, but I would like to add a few words about why there is a section here dedicated to sand dollars. My interest in doing some worthwhile miniatures on these shells derives from my exposure to the garrish and amateurish (in my view, anyway) examples of painted sand dollars always on display in the gift shops I passed in travels through Florida and other coastal states. I could certainly do better than that! So, I began collecting sand dollars from the beaches here in Panama and, over the past three decades or so, I’ll bet I have painted and sold more than 500 of them.
One final word before you go in. This site was created for me by one of the most talented and delightful people I have ever known, a true friend whose field of expertise is not computers, but international finance. She and I would both welcome your comments on the site and if you have any suggestions for improving it, please tell us.
OK, go ahead in. Look around. Enjoy yourself.
John Haines
The Art Gallery
Tug Gilberto Guardia
This is a painting that, upon request of the American Society here in Panama, I donated to that organization for its art auction held on August 26, 2015. The theme for the auction is the Panama Canal, and it seemed to my wife and me that it would be appropriate to depict the tugboat named for Mr. Gilberto Guardia, the first Panamanian Administrator of the Canal.
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Reposando
Here, I’m featuring some typical Panamanian tools, the coa and the machete. The former is used principally to dig holes for fence posts and to chop through stubborn roots. The machete is used for practically everything else (although, I’m sad to say, it is now being largely replaced by the weed-eater, or as it is known here, the “wider”).
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Visitor’s Favorites
A View from a Tree
This is another painting of my muse, Linda Nicole, now a teenager. I got the idea from a TV program I saw on TVE about thanksgiving which featured the Madrid School of Realism. Talk about a humbling experience! Five young guys and one girl, all of whom could paint so beautifully that I nearly gave up the hobby in favor of, say, knitting. One of the guys painted the same elderly male model from a bunch of different perspectives. All were great, but one–in which it appeared he was looking down on his subject who was standing in the street below–was so striking that I resolved not to give up painting until I had at least tried something similar. So I photographed Linda Nicole from approximately the same perspective and worked from there. How is it possible Justbuyessay to grasp media attention to this urgent problem
