This website is a joy for me to make.  I've always wanted to document my artwork and projects in one source, and at this point in my life, this seems to be the easiest way to do that.

 As you go through the images here click on any one of them to get the short synopsis of the artwork, or a little story that goes along with it.  Also check out the "Cool Stuff" category, it's a catchall for a lot of the stuff that I've made or repaired, or had an interest in in my life.  All of these artworks and projects are only a small proportion of the work that I have done, and it's going to be a long term project to get most of it in this website.  For numerous art and projects that I've done; I have no photographs or documentation whatsoever.

 If you're seeing this on a small screen (phone or whatever), click on the tiny "menu" icon at the top of site to see all the categories.  They show up on the bigger screens - iPads etc., but you have to click on "menu" otherwise.  I haven't quite figured out how to fix that yet...  ! ? 

See it all on the biggest screen you can, there's so much detail that is missed on small screens.  Also for more info about me, my thought processes, and philosophies of life see the two menu items “My Artists Signature” and “About”.

I currently live in Troy Michigan.  If interested in purchasing any of these works, or commissioning a work, or just commenting or saying Hi, contact me at:

email:   ronmaki99@gmail.com

Prices range from very small works about $100 to my largest work at about $1500, (everything in life is negotiable).

Oil on wood panel 24 x 15 November 2021

This is a painting from a black and white family photo. It depicts my Grandpa, Toivo Koykka, my mom Ruth, my Grandma Tillie, Toivo’s sister-in-law Esther, nephew Harold, and Toivo’s brother Charley.

I’ve been influenced by the great illustrator Bernie Fuchs and it’s influencing the look I want in my paintings.

Oil on wood panel, 16 1/2 x 12 3/4, January 2022

This from an old black and white family photo. I believe it’s the first photo taken of my great grandfather’s family when they arrived in the U.S. from Oulu Finland about 1905. Pictured left to right: My great grandfather, Oskar Koykka, Charlie Koykka (on lap), Onni Koykka (in back), My grandfather Toivo Koykka, about 7 years old, and my great grandmother, Sanna Koykka.

24x18.  Acrylic on canvas board.  2010

This is from a family black and white photo.  It pictures my mother Ruth Helen Koykka at approx. 2 years old with her parents Tillie and Toivo.  They lived in Michigan's U.P. on a farm in Elo Mi.  But I believe this pic was taken either in Detroit, or across the bridge in Windsor, Ontario Canada.

Oil on wood panel, 10 3/4 x 18 3/4, December 2021

This is an old family photo, I don’t know who the kid is or whose dog it is, but the pic inspired me to paint this. Some Finnlander relative up in the U.P. of Michigan, just starting out….eighteen months old, the back of the pic said. Probably from the 1930’s.

Approx. 37x24,  acrylic on masonite. 2004

This is from a family photo of my father - Staff Sergeant Arnold F. Maki Sr. at the end of World War ll in 1945.  He was with the 913th Field Artillery unit,  88th Division,  5th Army,  that went from Casablanca,  North Africa all the way through Italy to the Italian Alps and the Brenner Pass,  almost a full year in combat.  

Before that, while he was still in the States, he was with the 9th Division temporarily in 1942 for training in North Carolina. Then he was in Oklahoma in 1943 as part of the cadre of officers and NCO’s who were the key men who established and trained the new 88th Division.

In later life he worked for Chrysler Defense Engineering and General Dynamics.  He helped build prototypes for both companies such as the Redstone Missile, The Chrysler Turbine Car,  the plane to terminal transport machines at Dulles Airport, and the M1 Abrams Tank, among many others.

The second pic here is a memory box I made from his WWII things.  it hangs on the wall in my library.

16x20.  Oil on canvas board.    2017

This is from an old family photo of my Mom and a friend about 1940 when she would have been  18 years old.  The location is somewhere in the U.P. of Michigan, I'm not sure where, probably in the Keweenaw Peninsula.

12x12.   Oil and gold leaf on canvas panel     2017  Frame made by Ron Maki

This was a painting which I repainted three times and it still wasn't right.  I even threw paint at it which you can still see.  It didn't start to feel right until I put gold leaf on it.  My first gold leaf painting.  I think it came out great!  The second pic is of it framed. I made the frame from two separate frames and attached them together, and painted one of them. 

21 x 26 Oil on Birch Panel, October 2019

I changed this painting in the summer of 2021. I cut the left side out and painted over the rest of it. A much better painting I believe!…. The following applies to the earlier version…..The writing around the painting’s border says: (top) “At Wit’s End — Enchantment or Illusion” (bottom) “Go Ask Alice, I Think She’ll Know” (right side) “We Are All Crazy Here” (left side) “Curiouser and Curiouser”

This was a fun painting out of my imagination. Ya gotta love Alice, her world was as crazy as ours is now in 2019. (Lies are Truth, Up is Down, etc. etc., though I don’t think Alice had to deal with greed, fear and corruption at the highest levels of politics and business!!!!)

We might need to find us some White Rabbits….or at least a rabbit hole to stick our heads into….

Oil on canvas panel.   11x14.   2015

This painting won an Honorable Mention ribbon in the Art At The Museum show (SOAA) in Royal Oak MI 2015.

27x54.  Diptych.   Oil on birch panel.  2015

"Arrangement in Color and Form #3, Homage to Degas"

Degas is one of my favorite artists.  Almost more than anyone else he intensely studied movement in human form.  He spent a large part of his career painting at the ballet schools.  His work, to me, captures the natural  motion of the human body.  Which isn't easy to do.  In my paintings I try to capture moments of people unaware of posing,  that's when they are most interesting to depict in a painting or drawing.

Also this painting is a study of color and form; the warm gray, soft yellow, white and the intense red, to me, work wonderfully together, especially as large shapes of each color.

Small Sketch for Lady Agnew Redux

Oil on canvas board 15 ½ x 14 2023

The first oil sketch of this painting

Oil on linen, mounted on wood panel 19 x 24, 2021

This is from a black and white family photo taken in the summer of 1956 at my cousin Clarence Koykka’s Phillip 66 gas station in Elo Michigan. The car is a 1951 Chevy. Left to right— My Mom, Ruth Helen (Koykka) Maki, older brother Arnie (Freddie) sitting on hood, brother Jerry below him, brother Donnie on hood. My Dad, Arnold Frederick Maki Sr., and me, Ron Maki.

22 1/2 x 28. Oil and Gold Leaf on birch panel, 2018

This is a painting with about seven different sources that inspired me. The original photo that I took is from a bar/restaurant near New Pfaltz New York, near the Hudson River. I've included 3 photos of my painting to show how it changes when light hits them at different angles. It astounds me how much they change! Also included is my original pencil sketch for this piece.

20x16. Oil on canvas (unmounted).  2014

Painted from a live model.

Oil on linen, mounted on wood panel, 21x 21

This is from a family black and white photo. Left to right.. my older brother Arnie (Freddie) Maki, my Uncle Charlie’s well drilling partner, (forgot his name), Ron Maki (me), Uncle Charlie Koykka, My youngest brother Donnie, and my brother Jerry. Drilling a water well, somewhere near Calumet Michigan.

48 x 31 Mixed media, (oil, metal plates, copper corners) canvas panel paintings mounted on birch panel May 2019

This painting is an homage to my ancestors. Finn-Swedes who have been in this country since about 1900. They came here with nothing except self-confidence, resourcefulness, and hard work. They knew that it’s the little things in life that really are important. They had open eyes. I recently saw the movie Vanilla Skies with Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz, and I realized my paintings have mostly vanilla skies! I loved the philosophy in the movie. Ya gotta see it. Really, psychologically deep! See the second photo for the writing on the copper plate.

Oil on Linen, mounted on wood panel, 21 x 21, 2021

I repainted this pic in the fall of 2021. I really loved the form but the color wasn’t quite right. I now believe it is a much more exciting painting color wise……This is another color and form work that came out quite well.

It was mostly from my imagination, using complimentary colors,( but changed in 2021 !)

16x20 Oil on canvas board. 2014

9x12.  Oil on Raymar panel.    2013

This is the original small sketch for "The Lovely Brightness of Winter." My wife and I and our son Jeff had stopped in here for a drink on my birthday, November 27, after seeing a Toulouse Lautrec exhibit at the Flint Institute of Art - which was wonderful !  I loved the ambience in this place with a soft autumn light coming through the windows and making the creamy yellow walls glow.  (It was originally an old church, in downtown Clarkston).

15x15.  Oil and gold leaf on birch panel.     2017

My third gold leaf painting, I love working with this stuff!

To me, this painting is about the complications of human interaction.

Oil on Linen, mounted on panel 11 x 16, 2021

This is from a black and white family photo. Left to right, Me (Ron Maki) in my Dad Arnold Maki’s lap. Donnie in my Mom Ruth’s lap, Jerry, and Freddie sitting on the arm of the couch. I changed the background to a buttery yellow a few months later. See second pic for old image.

12x12. Oil on canvas panel.    2016

This was a very quick painting, probably didn't even take 1/2 hour.  The idea came from a 2x2 inch sketch in my sketchbook.   See pic 2.  I'm always looking for interesting poses and this one fit the bill.

20x30. Oil on birch panel.      2015

The Robert Henri painting on the wall is titled "Jessica Penn in Black and White Plumes" (1908).  She was a Ziegfield Follies dancer and a favorite model of Robert Henri. (He liked redheads). That painting is in a private collection and hasn't been seen much.  I only knew about it because it sold at a Christies auction on May 19, 2004 for $3,600,000, a record price for a Henri painting.

The landscape painting on the right wall is by my painting instructor at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, Tim Widener.  It's titled "Sunset on Gray Lake" (1990).  I made it larger than it is in real life, it's actual size is 10 x 16 1/2.  It's in my private collection.

 Robert Henri in his day, the early twentieth century, was not only a great painter, he was known as a superb teacher and was a member of the Ashcan School, which included the finest artists from the turn of the century America.

I'm especially fond of this painting because I consider my teacher Tim Widener to be the best teacher in any subject that I've ever had in my whole life.  The students he has at the BBAC have been with him for years and include many, many superb painters.

I have a  preliminary sketch of my painting  which measure 12x18 (included here).  I love the painting but I'm not fully satisfied with the background color. (After all this a color and form piece).  So in the next few months the color will be changed on the sketch first and then probably the larger painting.

Oil on linen, mounted on wood panel, 21 x21

This is a portrait of me, my son Jeff, and wife Kaye about 1989.

The image is from a black and white photo I put on our Christmas card that year.

11x14.  Oil on canvas board.   2016

This painting has an interesting story.  It started out as a painting of the picket fence and orange day lilies near the corner of my garage, with a lady standing at the gate.  A few days later I saw a copy of Van Gogh's "Crows in the Wheatfields", and I loved the shapes and colors.  All that remains of my original painting is the lady and the orange day lilies.   I love this painting now, it also reminds me of my Grandfather's farm in Elo MI and his gently rolling oatfields with hawks flying low over them looking for mice.

14x11.    Oil on canvas board.     2016?

This a painting that went through many changes before I was happy with it.   See my gallery on drawings to see the original 2 inch sketch of this painting.

27 x27 Oil and gold, silver and copper leaf on birch panel.  2018

I believe this painting is finished! ( Nope! ) I changed it again in February of 2019! I completely cut out one of the girls. I think it’s a better painting now.  But ya never know, my paintings are never really finished until they're on someone else's wall!  I've included 6 pics of it because it just astounds me how it changes in different light!

18x24, Oil on canvas board, 2018

This is from a family black and white photograph taken about 1946 at the end of WW II. This picture is a real treasure to me because it captures the essence of my Grandfather, Toivo Koykka, before I was born.

Elo, Michigan was a very small rural town in the middle of the Keweenaw Peninsula in the U.P. of Michigan. It was surrounded by small 40 acre farms, mostly with families of Finnish descent. Every little bit of this painting brings back great memories to me.

Toivo was an amazing character - he drove a team of horses for a logging camp when he was 13 years old (1911). He was a farmer, a copper miner, a woodsman, a logger, a carpenter, a craftsman and a dead-nuts shot with a rifle or pistol. An old friend of his once told me that you always knew where Toivo was in the mine because he was loudly singing in Finnish. Also he was one of the few guys down in the mines that they could count on not to puke when someone had to come and scrape the remains of any miner into a pillowcase who was unlucky enough to be caught in a cave-in and be smashed flat. It was a very dangerous time to be a miner when the owners only cared about profit. (Not allowing enough time to shore up the mines with timbers). The smart miners only worked down there long enough to get enough money to buy forty acres, a cow and a few chickens.

11x14. Oil on canvas board , 2018

This is from a family black and white photo of my Mom, Ruth Helen Koykka and her first cousin, Harold Koykka. Taken in 1939 in the Keweenaw Peninsula of the U.P. It’s not quite done yet, but almost. My Mom would have been 16 in this photo.

20x16 oil on canvas board. 2013?  Handmade frame by Ron Maki

This is from a family photograph (black and white) that I just loved.  Sitting on a haystack in Elo Michigan, on their family's farm are my Grandmother Tillie Kuopus and her older sister Hilma, probably when they were about 17 years old.  They were two of my favorite people in the world, along with their husbands Toivo and Gus.

There are 3 versions of this painting.  One I sold, Maybe in 2014 (present whereabouts unknown.)  Approx. the same size and colors.

The third painting is actually the first one I did in 2005, in sepia acrylic, size approx. 33x24

Sisters, Tillie and Hilma, circa 1919, Version 1.    Approx. 33x24 acrylic on masonite. Painted in 2005.

This is from an old family photo, circa 1919.  They are sitting on a haystack on the family farm in Elo Michigan, right in the middle of the Keweenaw Peninsula, in Michigan's U.P.    Pictured are my Grandmother Tillie Kuopus and her older sister Hilma, when they were about 17. They were two of my favorite people in the world, along with their husbands Toivo Koykka and Gus Linja.

9x12. Oil on canvas board.  This painting won the BBAC Education Award in a 2013 show at the BBAC.

 This is another painting from an old black and white family photo.  This is my Dad, Arnold F. Maki Sr. and my Mom, Ruth Helen Maki in Detroit around 1948.  Probably the first year of their move from the U.P. down to Detroit. Presently in the collection of my sister Janet in Hermansville Michigan.

Version 1 of this painting was sold, maybe in 2012?  Whereabouts unknown.

three paintings still in process, about music, one in top right is a portrait of my wife and son and me in 1989

31 x 16 Mixed Media (acrylic, map collage) on birch panel April 2019

This is a philosophical piece, inspired by what motivates me to create art. There are little clues throughout the painting — Especially in the names of the islands that I have added to the map. I’ve included three pictures of the process this painting went through, from the original sketch to the finished art.

16x12.   Oil on canvas board.    2014

This is a plein air painting done at Cranbrook in July 2014.

12 x12 Oil on Canvas, Mounted on Birch Panel, November 2019

This was another experiment with color using the CMY color wheel. I’d say at this point in my development as a painter the paintings I enjoy most are paintings about Color and Form. Simple, mostly flat forms and shapes and usually only 2 or 3 colors using complement colors to good effect. The art on the wall is Edvard Munch’s “Loving Woman, also known as Madonna.”

The subject in this one is essentially music and art — guitars and paintings, and my relationships psychologically to that.

The things that fill my time these days are art and painting — music, learning to play the 4 string guitar (in ukukele tuning, GCEA, without reentrant tuning, gCEA) — and reading and learning.

All creative endeavors that keep me sane in an insane world. LOL!

14x11. Oil on canvas board.   2016 ?

This was a rework of an older painting done from a live model.  I liked the model's pose but didn't care for the rest of the painting.  So I changed everything around her.  I added the Edward Hopper painting in the background  to add a little excitement and mystery.   He's always been one of my favorite artists.

14x11.  Oil on canvas panel.  2016

This was a quick painting done from  photos I took on Oahu at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel - we stayed there in 2015.  My wife's Father stayed at this hotel when he was a young marine in World War ll.   He was originally a shipboard marine on the USS Pensacola, (heavy cruiser), and saw action in the Solomons where the Pensacola was torpedoed and almost sunk.  The ship made it back to Hawaii and my Father-In-Law was lucky enough to have been based in Hawaii for the rest of the war.

14x11 ?   Oil on canvas board.  2016

Painted from a photo I took on the island of Maui 2015.

I liked how the stage light on the bottom right added a nice effect to this image.

oil on canvas panel 12x12.   2015

There are two versions of this painting, one in Hawaii and one I still have.

Private collection:  Honolulu Hawaii

8x10. Oil on canvas panel.    2015

From a photo I took on the beach near the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, where we stayed in April 2015.   A quick painting, probably less than a half hour to paint.

23x36.   also a smaller one 12×20 both are  Oil on birch panel.    2016.  Frame made by Ron Maki

This painting is from a photograph I have of friends and I in our dirt biking days. We rode from the early seventies to the mid-eighties - dirt bikes and street bikes.  During that time period I owned at least 10  different motorcycles at different times.  We all ended up eventually selling our bikes -- riding a motorcycle is a very dangerous endeavor.  We all "crashed and burned" at some point, or rather, -- many points!  The most memorable was up near Black Lake MI - we were riding in a misty rain and lots of mud - having a blast, when Mo's bike, going about 20 miles an hour,  went through a puddle of water that was really a hole.  His front end went straight down into the hole, and the bike stopped dead-- he flew over the handlebars doing a complete back flip, feet straight up in the air, and landed on his feet!!!  Totally amazing and awesome.        (See the category "Cool Stuff" for a lot more about the motorcycles I had.)

Pictured are Bill, Bruce, Mo, John, Me, Dennis, and Carl.  There is also a smaller sketch of this painting, quite similar  12 3/4 by 20, oil on canvas panel. That one is owned by my good friend since grade school, Bill Gross. (The guy with the cowboy hat).

20x16. Oil on canvas board. 2014 ?

From a live model, the man had an Indian headress he acquired from an Indian in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The second painting was done the same day 12x12

14 1/2 x 19   Oil and gold leaf and copper leaf on birch panel. 2018

Finally finished this painting, it went through a lot of changes but I'm very happy with the result!  I've included many photos of it to show how  light conditions change the image.

16x20  oil on canvas (not mounted).    2015

This was painted from a costumed live model (Janet) and a fake monkey.  I painted her twice on the same canvas from two different poses she did that day.

9x12. Oil on canvas board  2011

This represents Idea development for a larger painting

12x14.  Oil on birch panel.  2018. 

 One of the original oil sketches for the Lady of the Marshlands. 

I liked it so much I finished it as a complete painting by itself.

Berthe Morisot

16 ×12 oil on canvas board 2012

This is my favorite Manet painting. I saw the original at the Toledo Museum of Art. I had to make a copy. It was on loan from Paris. It’s and interesting story— she was a great impressionist painter herself and was Mane't’s model and , some say, girlfriend, but she later married his brother! The second painting is the original. I can’t decide if I like mine or his better !

20x16, oil on canvas board.   2015?

A painting inspired by a trip to NYC.  We were leaving the Arcadia Gallery in Soho and walked north a bit and found this really cool bar at 203 Spring St. called the Soho Room.  We stopped in there for a very good and reasonably priced lunch.  The second pic I took with my camera and it eventually became this painting.  Our table was in the perfect spot, the person by the door in the striped shirt, (you can only see her arm, on the left side of the door), is my wife Kaye.  We basically had open windows on three sides of us. On a gorgeous NYC day!

27x27. Oil on birch panel. 2015

Used as the poster image for the BBAC 2016 student works show.  This painting originally started out as a small plein air painting at Cranbrook Oriental Garden.  I kept changing it in the studio and eventually made this larger version, which also went through many changes and repainting --- and I love the result.

Also shown at the Troy Design Center 2017.

Collection of the artist

Oil sketch on canvas panel 10 x 10 2015 for the larger painting, the Artist in Red. The actual color of this painting is much brighter than this pic shows. It’s a lot closer in brightness to the larger painting’ photo.

21 x27 Oil on Birch Panel, September 2019

This is an image of the farm next to my Grandfather’s (Toivo Koykka) farm in Elo Michigan. Sam Maki sold it to my Father, Arnold Maki about 1947. My Dad sold it to Keith Maki about 2005. And later it sold again. When I was a kid it was a magical place. It was abandoned and my brothers and I used to play in there a lot. It also had an apple orchard of Transparent Apples which make the best apple pies ever — made by my Grandma Tillie Koykka. It also had huge bee’s nests and hornets nests. We messed with the hornets and they messed with us, nuff’ said!

The image is of my Grandfather looking across his 40 acres at the old farm. It is an image from my memories and my imagination.

It’s painted in a Van Gogh style. He’s one of my favorite painters.

16x20.  Oil on canvas. (not mounted).     2015

This was painted from a live costumed model.  (Richard)

16x16.  Oil and gold leaf on birch panel. 2017. Frame made by Ron Maki

My second gold leaf painting. I saw this image of the girl with a hand over her face and thought it was a wonderful image.  Pondering how to use it in a painting I came up with Hope Grace Joy, Version 2.   (Version 1 is the 3 cats, see that painting in the category Pets and Animals).   To me those three words conjure up a lot of emotion and contemplation on the human condition.  I wanted the painting to do the same.  And like all my paintings, the interpretation is up to the individual viewer.  Enjoy and contemplate!  I have two pics of it here to show how this picture changes in varying light conditions.  Plus I have a pic of it framed.  I made this frame from scratch with birch panel and wood trim and gold paint. (Private collection Troy Mi)

20x16. Oil on canvas board.   2005

That's me on the right with my brothers, Freddie and Jerry.  The perch were from Otter Lake back in the days when they were plentiful. The image is from an old family photo.

17x14.  Oil on canvas panel.   2013

Originally painted in plein air at Cranbrook Oriental Gardens, later changed in the studio.

oil on canvas panel. 9x12

Private collection, Wolverine Lake Michigan

oil on panel

Private collection:  Bloomfield Hills Michigan

27 x27 Oil on birch panel 2017

This is one of my favorite paintings. The subject is the artist Teresa Oaxaca. She is an amazing artist, her drawings are superb. (Pretty much all of my earliest work is pencil drawings, so I have enormous respect for artists that draw extremely well). And her paintings have a quirkiness to them that I love. On top of that she has her own unique style of dressing in clothes from a hundred years ago! All this talent in such a young person! I believe she’s only 31, check out her paintings and drawings on Google if you get a chance.

I saw a photo of her in this pose and had to make it the subject of a painting. In most of my latest work I paint people. What I am looking for in these paintings are unique poses — How people stand or sit when no one is looking and they are completely themselves.

The painting in the background is a painting in my own collection. I painted it initially in plein-air at Cranbrook. Then I made it into a studio painting with many changes. It’s titled, “The Artist in Red, (Cranbrook Oriental Garden).” The other figure sitting in the chair is an amalgamation of various sitting poses that I’ve seen.

Private collection:  Beverly Hills, Michigan

20x16.  Oil on canvas board.      2012

Painted from a live model

20x16.  Oil on canvas panel.    2012

This was originally painted from a live model.   But I can't remember who because I changed this painting so much over a period of a few years that I don't remember it's origin.  It'll probably change again!

20x16.  Oil on unmounted canvas.      2015

Painted from a live model

16x20. Oil on canvas board. 2014?

This is painting from a live model.  The second pic is a photo of that model in her pose.

20x16. Oil on unmounted canvas.   2015

Painted from a live model.