School’s Back!
August 22, 2017
In North Carolina, school is back in session again. Is it cruel or kind to keep kids indoors when the temperature and humidity are in the mid-90s? There is the distraction factor of math and spelling.
Playing Dead is No Fun
August 19, 2017
What’s a cat to do when the mouse refuses to run? Playing dead just isn’t any what kitty has in mind.
Kids are Still Kids
August 17, 2017
Some watercolor exercises of kids being kids. Possible book spot illustrations. These were done as two separate pieces, but they seem to get along well.
It’s Raining!
August 15, 2017
It’s raining and Allison has bright new red rubber boots, which are perfect for puddle splashing and explorations. My exploration in this piece was how to paint rain. From the back of my desk, I unearthed a rather motley looking brush that I bought years ago at a hobby store. It’s labelled Filbert Wisp. I […]
Pictures at an Exhibition
August 14, 2017
Seems like it would be impossible to be a children’s book illustrator without being able to draw and paint a decent mouse. This one is out for a Sunday gallery tour.
A Princess and her Rabbit
August 10, 2017
A Princess and her Rabbit take a walk. They take one walk every day. She would much rather take her cat, but her cat (Kitties) bites, scratches, falls over and plays dead. So Princess takes Rabbit instead. Rabbit is happy.
Hair!
August 7, 2017
Hair! My first Illustration Friday entry. Illustration Friday is an online artist community where anyone can enter and share their work. There is a weekly theme and the responses regularly tally in the hundreds, perhaps thousands. There is a current week’s topic (announced every Friday). Artists then make an illustration based on the current topic. […]
Get Outdoors: Caturday
August 5, 2017
Happy Caturday . Summer is passing. Get outside while the getting’s good.
Following Advice
August 3, 2017
Last night I went to a grants funding workshop. They pounded home one thing over and over: the artist must have a consistent body of work. If you have work in multiple categories, even if you have very good work in multiple categories, you will not be taken seriously by a group of reviewers. “Find […]
Caturday in the Milleau
July 29, 2017
Milleau (synonyms): environment, sphere, background, backdrop, setting, context, atmosphere Sometimes the wallpaper is your milleau. Another celebration of the weekly holiday, #Caturday
Let’s Walk
July 27, 2017
Midsummer in the south is unbearably hot for most of the day, but fabulous in the early morning hours. It’s a magical time. Walking in the nearby woods, you can hear crickets and frogs; birds are singing their walkup soliloquies and baby birds are shrieking for breakfast. If you look hard, and are lucky, you […]
Wolf on the Hill
July 25, 2017
Years ago, when I first began painting, I was obsessed with paintings of the early Renaissance. I had a huge admiration for the artists of that era and for the whole notion of rebirth. I had been attending art classes at the University of Oklahoma, where abstract expressionism was the password to success. Realism was […]
Gimme That Cake!
July 24, 2017
Breaking away from the experimental book format, I have stepped up slightly to 140 pound cold-press watercolor paper with collage, acrylic paint, colored pencils and neocolor crayons. The cake just snuck in there. Probably too much Wayne Thiebauld in my youth. Besides, as we all know. everything goes better with cake.
Caturday – Al the Party Cat
July 22, 2017
Mixed media party with cat in hat. Lots of layers here- some glazing with pthalo blue in the final steps to make the background recede. Al, the party cat is an older, wiser cat. Sometimes all this fun just stuns him a bit. He might rather just be taking a nap.
Superhero ♥ Dogs
July 20, 2017
This page started out with a copy of a page from an old comic book. I’m not exactly sure who the superhero was. Cuphead man? Robotman? In the original image, the comic book persona was staring out of a double-hung window, semi-smiling. The rest is just compositional fun.
Ay! Chihuahua
July 18, 2017
This blog has gone to the dogs again. Mixed media experimentation with a wide-eyed, innocent chihuahua. This may be one of my last book experiments for a while. The seam in the middle is beginning to irritate. This picture began as a collage: magazine page close-ups of precious stones provided the deep reds and blues. The […]
Dog and Flower
July 17, 2017
Experimental goal for this exercise was to use a rubber stamp. In a lonely drawer in my studio, I located a chrysanthemum rubber stamp. I loaded the stamp with acrylic paint and deliberately printed only part of the flower. Hindsight, I should have used the entire stamp. It gets a bit too abstract to really […]
Tuxedo Caturday
July 15, 2017
Happy Caturday! Inspired by my own kitty, this is (C.A.T. or Cheerful Art Thing) . C.A.T. is another page in my art experimentation booklet; acrylic, colored pencil, and neocolor crayons.
Dog Doodle
July 13, 2017
Dog Doodle, not a labradoodle. This was the second page in my experimentation book. I wanted to work large and semi-realistically. This page began with a layered collage from magazine and book pages. I then painted and drew until things felt finished. The media used was the book/magazine card stock for the surface, cheap craft […]
Creation Process: Alternative Surfaces
July 11, 2017
In trying to paint loose, one of my hesitations is the cost and storage of the painting surface. I typically have been using water based media on watercolor paper. Not expensive watercolor paper. But I can get a bit OCD about any material. This winter, a group on the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle area put out […]
Caturday Abstraction
July 8, 2017
No real explanation here, just experimentation; possibly not a total success. Bruce Mau once said in his Incomplete Manifesto for Growth: Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view […]
Materials for Abstract Learning – Go Cheap
July 5, 2017
One of my key goals is to get looser in my painting. This requires not worrying about the cost of materials for creations that will likely never be seen outside of my studio. So, what can I use that will have some of the fun and looseness of Jane Davies‘ paintings? Davies uses good quality […]
Right Hand Recovery
July 3, 2017
As part of my broken wrist recovery, I have had to strengthen the hand muscles and relearn some of the motions that had been second nature. But before I could begin the reuse of my right hand, I was stuck painting and drawing for about 2 months with my lest (or left) hand. I cannot […]
Happy Days!
May 9, 2017
Feeling like a witness to a post-broken-wrist miracle: I am holding a pencil and brush again and making some art! The lines have a good bit more wiggle than they used to, and paint strokes are not as strong.- but I am holding implements of creation in my right hand! Hallelujah!