Jeff Johnston Studios, Mobile
The Maker: Jeff Johnston
Jeff Johnston doesn’t believe art lies in connecting the dots. The art IS the dots.
Johnston was drawn to art as a boy, working with charcoal, pen-and-ink and pencil drawings as young as 10.
But it wasn’t until he was taking a drawing class when he was in his early 20s that he got, uh, pointed in a different direction.
“The instructor was going, ‘I think I know something you might like to do,’ and showed me how to do the stippling with the pen and ink,” Johnston said. “I just took right to it.”
Stippling is used in pointillism, the technique of creating drawings using a series of tiny dots that come together to make an image.
“It’s a long process to finish a piece,” Johnston said. “It takes a long time to draw in just dots. But I find it very relaxing. I get going and I can work on it for hours and the whole world disappears while I’m doing it. Some people, it drives them crazy. I just go within and keep going and it might be hours when I look up.”
His first piece of art using pointillism was a drawing he did of the leaves of his mother’s split-leaf phildendron plant. He felt like he accurately captured the shapes and shadows created by the plant, and that artwork still hangs in his home.
From there, Johnston got into doing other pieces, primarily animals and nature. He loves animals and is involved in animal rescue, so the subjects came naturally to him.
After years of doing black-and-white images, Johnston started adding touches of color with acrylics in his pointillism.
About a year ago, he got into using hot wax in his art, known as encaustic painting.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Johnston said. “It’s interesting working in a media that melts, so it’s been a huge learning curve. I’ve found tools where I can still do pointillism and encaustic, so it’s a lot of fun. You get bright, vibrant colors. Some of my pieces, especially in the encaustics, are just full of color and whimsical.”
Johnston was among the first artists to set up in what is now known as the Central Artist Collective in downtown Mobile. The former school at the Central Presbyterian Church has been converted into a conclave with 14 artists working there today.
Johnston said he does almost all of his work there now.
In addition to selling directly out of his studio, Johnston does many shows and festivals throughout the year. He carries a variety of his works because he never knows what is going to be popular on any given day.
Certain people pick up on certain things, be it the subject matter or the colors.
“It’s just a mixture of what draws people,” he said. “I never know from one show to the next what’s going to be the big seller.”
The majority of his works are small pieces, allowing Johnston time to produce multiple images in as short a time as possible. Large works can easily take him up to 50 hours to complete. He once spent nearly 70 hours on a peacock that was drawn in black and white but then highlighted with acrylic.
Yes, he will do commission works.
“It’s not cheap because of the time it takes,” he said.
Because he spends so much time with a piece, Johnston admits he gets attached to certain ones. An owl he has hanging in his studio remains one of his all-time favorites and a sea turtle he was proud of ended up selling before the show it was in even opened.
“It’s always one of my favorites that sells,” he said.
To take a break from his pointillism, Johnston draws a comic weekly panel on Facebook titled “The Mutt House” featuring a mixed-breed dog named Huddly Hound.
“He gets in a lot of stuff,” Johnston said. “He’s kind of like my sarcastic alter ego.”
Jeff Johnston Studios
The Product: Pointillism art in pen and ink, acrylic and encaustic.
Take Home: A colorful matted print of a seahorse titled “Alamar” ($32) or buy the original encaustic ($295).
1260 Dauphin St., Suite 2A, Mobile, Alabama, 36604 (by appointment)
(Courtesy of Alabama NewsCenter)
