Ivan Rijhoff

I am living in Southern Middle Tennessee.U.S.A. I have had no formal training in art, but I have been interested in drawing and painting since I was a child. I do not consider myself a very good artist. I was born and raised in San Francisco. I left school after the eighth grade. I have worked in building, remodeling, masonry,electrical instllation and maintenance, and finish carpentry. I have operated a small remodeling business, done lithography, photography, camera and photographic equiptment repair, and automobile maintenance and repair. I have done airline service and cleaning, worked in a pizza parlor, I was a janitor, I did house construction and design, and wood working of many types, and I have been a sign-painter. I have a small wood shop and have cut trees on our property and taken them to an Amish mill near us and had them cut into boards and dried them in our attic and made many projects with the finished wood. I have been painting since 1960, off- and- on, and for the last ten years have devoted a good amount of time to oil painting and wood sculpture. I keep three or four paintings in progress at any one time so I can let one set to dry and work on another or when my inspiration changes. I like to use up to ten coats of fine Damar varnish to bring the colors back to what I intended when the work was originally done. This process can take up to ten months, depending on how much time I think each coat of varnish needs to dry. The varnish I use can cause a reflection from bright light when the painting is hung. This can be avoided by using soft light from the bottom of the work. If Flare is still a problem move the lighting away from the work five feet or more. All of the art work I have showing here is either for sale or in a private collection. I have tried to make prints available of all my work. In many of my paintings there is a hidden message. Sometimes a dragon and sometimes it is in the colors or the way they are used. I don't always explain my full intent. I leave that to the viewer to discover. I do only one show each year. I tried two or three other shows but found it distracting. One more thing about the varnish. I tried less coats but I did not see the depth that ten coats adds to a painting. It is like looking at a leaf through a magnifying drop of water or wetting a rock to see it's hidden beauty through the water. I am adding Photographs to my pages here. Some of my photographs are ment to be hung in groups. I will note this option in the description so viewers can get my drift when I have two or more photo's in a series. I am also making clock cases for four hundred day anniversary clocks. I no longer offer prints of my paintings on this site. If you sould like a print let men know.

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