I realized that Acrylics wouldn’t work for me concerning the type of translucent layering of the backgrounds and the gradation effects to create form I had used in my watercolor techniques.

It was time to consider oils. With the reconnect with acrylics there was a familiarity as I had worked with acrylics many, many years ago. With being unfamiliar with oils, I now needed help.

A question arose in my head ‘What were these oil paint products of which I speak and how does one use them’.

By coincidence I had passed a strip of stores in my local area of which one was a newly opened gallery. I stopped in and while viewing the type of artworks currently on display, a conversation with the owner revealed that in-house oil painting classes were available under her tutelage. I signed up.

I completed two paintings (first two shown) during my short attendance in these classes. Then circumstances arose and I needed to search for the next instructor. Becoming informed of an artist’s group that gathers once a week, I attended and within that group found that instructor, Karen.

Even though I don’t attend any formal classes now, I still am in contact with Karen for critiques and advice when needed as well as others in that art group.

The paintings shown, 3 to 10, are examples of first oil paintings and my continuing path into learning to work with oils.

With the work and accumulated skill I applied to the oil painting ‘But the Map Says…..’ (image number 10 in the previous project) I opted to work on a touch bigger series of 20 x 16-inch paintings. All would still be painted on MDF (medium density fiberboard) because of the materials stability as well as my access to the sheet goods and table-saw to cut the sizes I wanted. By trade, I am a Carpenter, Cabinetmaker, and draftsman (blueprints/shop drawings).

It wasn’t until I reached the sixth painting of what would become a series of nine paintings, that I found an idea/doodle for a next painting that justified working larger still (22 x 22 inch). While working on this sixth painting  ‘Mating Calls’, I began to ponder a possible solo exhibit.

With the suggestion from a fellow artist of a local bookstore that allowed artists to display their art in a reading section, I checked it out. My assessment of the display area layout, I found would suit my needs of curating a solo exhibit myself outside of a gallery setting. I signed up for a slot at Ukazoo Bookstore in Towson, Maryland. With a set date for the exhibit, I continued work to complete the balance of the nine paintings as the featured art for the show.

The scope of the exhibition prompted a need to expand my audience. With that, I upgraded my website, created a FaceBook and WordPress Blog account. With that in place and the exhibit nine months away I created a fictional weekly posting in diary/story format called ‘The Journey to Ukazoo’. In 2019 I self-published this journey project as a 140-page ArtStory book.

These are those nine oil paintings

After the Ukazoo exhibit I pondered a next project to maintain my social media promotional presence. I remembered a doodle and the several failed attempts to get it to a finished painting. My current idea was to divide the open-air skeleton framework of related parts of a home into four sections, 1. front porch & door/living room. 2. Second floor window/interior room. 3. exterior window/dining & Kitchen area. 4. front yard/gate entrance

My doodles and initial rough worksheets had ideas for some of the items for these placement in these areas.

Needing more items to fill up the painting I turned to my ’friends’ and ’followers’ on Facebook for an audience participation project.

Posting one section at a time, I gave some basic criteria for one section of these sections along with a pencil worksheet drawing of my layout and asked for ideas of items to include in that section.

I was rewarded with a wonderful response in the comments of various items to pick from.

I worked the selected ideas into the worksheet, posted a workable section for viewing and then onward to the next section for contributed ideas and repeated the process until I had all four sections worked out and ready to start the painting.

After a year’s work on this project, I secured a space to host another solo art exhibit in September 2015 that featured not just the ’House That Jack Built’ painting but other works of art completed over the those two years after the Ukazoo show. 

The 12 + 12, 12 x 12’s Oil Painting project

Between the Feb/March 2014 Ukazoo Solo Exhibit & 2015 ‘House That Jack Built’, and the future self-publishing of 'The Journey to Ukazoo' ArtStory book in 2019 I created another long-range art project for social media on-line posting. In progress between March 2016 to November 2018, the project was titled ’12 + 12, 12 x 12’s’.

The ‘12 x 12’s’ in the project title referred to all paintings created would be 12 x 12 inches in size.

As for the first part, ’12 + 12’, the first noted '12' were twelve oil paintings I chose to complete from selected ‘doodles’ in my sketchbooks. 

Shown in this fifth project section are 10 of those 12 paintings that I chose.

Between the Feb/March 2014 Ukazoo Solo Exhibit & 2015 ‘House That Jack Built’, and the future self-publishing of 'The Journey to Ukazoo' ArtStory book in 2019 I created another long-range art project for social media on-line posting. In progress between March 2016 to November 2018, the project was titled ’12 + 12, 12 x 12’s’.

The ‘12 x 12’s’ in the project title referred to all paintings created would be 12 x 12 inches in size.

As for the second part of the ’12 + 12’, the second noted '+12' were another twelve oil paintings. For this +12 my part was selecting 12 fellow artists, family, or friends. Once selected, I gave one sketchbook to each, and they would peruse through the pages and select a few ‘doodles’ they found interesting.

With their selections I chose one or a combination of others they chose and transferred these choices to a worksheet to develop a finished painting of my design. 

Shown in this sixth project section are 10 of those 12 paintings that I created from those choices.

The ‘Intermissions’.

During the 2016 to 2018 12 + 12 oil painting project, I paused twice, each as a series of ‘doodles’ in the sketchbooks caught my eye but did not fit into the 12 + 12 project. The first ‘Intermission’ was for a series of eight 8 x 10-inch paintings (Sept. 2017 to December 2017). After the resumption of the 12 + 12 project another similar ‘Intermission’ (April 2018 to June 2018) took place to create six 11 x 14-inch paintings.

Shown are 5 of the 8 x 10’s and 5 of the 11 x 14’s completed during these ‘Intermissions’.

With everything shut down for our bout with the Covid Epidemic it only stood to reason that artists had lots of time and no place to go, so why not do art stuff. Which I did.

As vaccines and easing of restrictions started to allow stores to reopen, one of two galleries I was involved with at the time was willing to set a date for me to put on a solo exhibit. This is by no means a reflection on the second gallery, a lot of apprehension surrounded putting on art exhibits. The solo exhibit was scheduled to consider the slow relaxing of restrictions. At the time of the opening, October 2021, all the government and medical advice eased conditions enough that we were comfortable requesting that everyone be vaccinated, and masks were optional.

Shown are ten oil paintings selected from this solo exhibit, from over 40 works of art, past & current, watercolor/pen & ink, oils, that I displayed for this show.

Here's the quick backstory. I had submitted my art to "The Huts Magazine," an Instagram online/print publication, and it was accepted. Of course, I ordered a print copy. The four images, Biography, and Artist statement all looked good in the magazine's two-page spread. But ahh, there had been a mishap, a snafu.

My name was reversed and minus the ‘L’; rather than being Craig L Haupt, I was now Haupt Craig!

While addressing this name snafu with close friends, comments ranged from theorizing that my new name, Haupt Craig, sounded like a German or Dutch Renaissance Artist to progressively sillier takes, finally culminating with my announcing I was now Haupt C.  -- or the final version -- Hauptcee Haupt.

Since I had fun with spot cameos or three other fictitious twin brothers in my YouTube Art videos, Hauptcee Haupt became my fourth ‘fictitious twin brother’.

Then why not have a slight bit more fun and sign my next oil painting ‘Hauptcee’. That seemed like a simple progression.

Then I thought if I could have fun as the jovial 'Hauptcee' for an evening and YouTube cameo plus a completed 18 x 18-inch oil painting, why not be 'Hauptcee' for a year?! My next long-range Body of work/series of paintings could all be painted and signed by this fictitious Hauptcee Haupt.

Two sketchbooks were delegated to my fourth fictitious twin brother ‘Hauptcee’ for filling them with ‘doodles/sketches’ over the next year and all completed paintings had to originate from those two ‘Hauptcee’ sketchbooks.

Six oil paintings were completed for an upcoming solo exhibition that featured ‘Hauptcee Haupt’s’ paintings and watercolor and oil paintings works by ‘me’ (Craig L Haupt).

The seventh and eighth oil paintings, by Hauptcee, were left at different stages of completion and, at the conclusion of this project for the solo exhibit, are to be completed by ‘me’. 

Lol, of course we will share credit.

Final note, please remember that this is a ‘tongue in cheek’ project construed on an art publications misprint of my name.

The following art encompasses a menagerie of art that has found its way into group exhibits rather than my solo exhibits and/or long-range art projects. Plus, a couple, newly completed, that have yet to be shown in an art exhibit.