My name is John O'Keefe and this is me with my wife Jennifer. Both of us were born and raised in Wallingford, Connecticut, USA and this is were we continue to live and are now raising our own family. Like every other artist I have loved viewing and creating art since as far back as I can remember. Growing up I was always drawing with pencils, colored pencils, watercolors, and I tried just about everything I could get my hands on. I received formal art training during my primary school years and I have placed within the top 5 at the state level student art competitions. I was invited to attend art classes one day a week at the University of Bridgeport Connecticut while I was a student in middle school. I have studied watercolor painting with Connecticut artist Cathy Singer and I received training at the Paier College of Art in New Haven Connecticut all before graduating high school.
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It was my love for art that led me seek a career in mechanical drafting. As new technologies emerged I advanced from manual drafting to more sophisticated 3D CAD modeling systems, Project management and new product development. Over the course of 18 years, I have completed many university courses and job specific training to advance my career.
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I pursued the musical arts in my personal time for many years until growing family responsibilities made it to difficult. For a time I ran a small recording studio out of my home while also playing guitar in a few bands. (Note: The music pages have not been updated in years so please excuse any errors.)
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I have other personal projects that I'm working on. I'm leading a project to develop a sophisticated DC-9-41 cockpit add-on package for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This project is focused on the Scandinavian Airline Service (SAS) DC-9 airplane OY-KGR. Its very graphics intensive and therefor I created a lot of computer generated image files along with all system and gauge programming.
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However, my wife Jennifer has put in me a new zeal for creating art. It was her encouragement and support that motivated me to take up oil painting in 2007 and now we are working together to promote my paintings and build a small business. Jennifer enjoys creating art and her works can also be seen in the gallery section.
What direction am I heading with my oil painting? I love the early American painters from the Hudson River School and Victorian era. Most of my landscape oil paintings are directed toward the styles of those early artists. I hope to one day produce comparable works to such masters of landscape as Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and John Kennsett.
In closing, I created this site to share art with others. You will find a detailed explanation of my painting process and the materials that I used for each painting. (...Just follow the links found in the gallery pages) I hope this information will benefit you as you explore the world of creating your own art.
Please enjoy!
John