Jim O'Neil's photos

The view from the north edge of my property. Yarka pan watercolors on Canson 140 pound cold pressed paper. 11 by 15 inches/

Just out enjoying the weather. watercolor on 5 by 9 inch cold pressed.

Watercolor and ink, 6 by 9 inches

No, I'm not really having any problem keeping my head above water, just a passing thought this morning so I sketched it. Nope, if I did have it to do over again I wouldn't change a thing. Everything before leads to right now and now's pretty good! Ink on colored card stock, 5 by 9 inches. Gotta go now, time to take my SJTG (small Japanese tour group [aka;Kumiko]) out to see a gold mine!...

Tired of the mundane, the humdrum, the day to day? No worries, leave it all behind, just cross the bridge.... Yarka pan watercolors on 140 pound cold pressed, 11 by 15 inches.

Faber-Castell pens and oil pastels on Bee's 'bogus' rough sketch paper, 9 by 18 inches.

Little Kumiko's friend, little Mariko, slept over last night. They were chatting and giggling well in to the early hours of the morning. No they're not thirteen and sixteen, they're thirty something and sixty something. :-) Soft pastels on colored stock, 12 by 12 inches.

Three years back, in the spring, I was at Himeji Castle, in Japan, when, 花吹雪, the hanafubuki, the flower storm, struck! The wind picked up and suddenly the air was filled with dancing, dashing cherry blossoms! This fall I happened to be in the forest, near my property when a leaf storm struck! The birch and aspen leaves danced and soared forming ever changing patterns against the tree trunks, -it seems like hours but it was just, at the very most, a few minutes. Magical!!! Acrylic on acetate, approximately 21 by 25 inches

I was driving home from North Pole around noon, the autumn sun relatively low in the sky, and the intense fall colors, along Badger Slough, caught my fancy. Subsequently, when I got home I had to try and capture them with paint. Yarka pan watercolors on Canson 140 pound cold pressed paper. 11 by 15 inches.

Way back then see, was this guy name of Joshu, he had it all together, see. Well he went to visit this here hermit monk. He, Josh, say; "Whatsup, man, whatsup?" The monk just made a fist. Joshu say: "Shucky darn, no room for me in this here littl' minnow pond!" and he go. Next day Josh come back and he say; "Whatsup, man, whatsup?" The hermit monk make a fist again. Josh say: Oh wow, man, you give it, you take it, you nailed it you have it, cool! and he high fived the hermit. Now day one,you, I, Josh, we see home boy didn't know diddley , day two, he dug it all and told right righteously. ! So bro, what changed? My retelling of a zen story from Mumon's 'The gateless gate By the way, the 2 cigar butts (Les Deux Megots) was The Coffee house on New York's, Lower East Side that I frequented in the early sixties. Caran D'Ache Neocolor II water soluble crayons on Canson, 11 by 15 inch, 140 pound cold pressed

Until the mid seventies, in the farming village Unomachi, in the mountains, on Shikoku Island, in Japan, all the rice was planted by hand. A hundred women would line up before dawn to trudge, almost knee deep, through the mud of the rice paddies, stepping, stooping, carefully planting each seedling, until the setting of the sun. Dedicated to Haruko Utsunnomiya, a delightful lady who was one of those hundred women. Faber-Castell pens and Neocolor II crayons on 12 by 12 inch colored stock.

Faber-Castell pens and Neocolor II crayons on 12 by 12 inch colored stock.

The kanji 無字, could be translated as 'no word'. It was used in reply to a zen Buddhist koan that was a shaggy dog story. ;-) Crayola 'extreme color' crayons on card stock, 5 by 8 1/2 inches.

My winter firewood is all cut and stacked. I replaced the heating system in my river shop that failed last winter at -50°. I just finished programing the house thermostat. I'm ready! Crayon and colored pencil on 5 by 8 1/2 inch colored card stock

go ahead, take a few minutes to look at the ground in your yard.

BEFORE the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time, with a gift of tears; Grief, with a glass that ran; Pleasure, with pain for leaven; Summer, with flowers that fell; Remembrance fallen from heaven, And madness risen from hell; ---------- from Algernon Charles Swinburne's Chorus from ‘Atalanta’ Soft pastel and colored pencil on colored stock, 12 by 12 inches