I have made lots of bird drawings in my sketchbook, and used one of these that I did a few years ago. That’s the bonus of drawing constantly — you always have material to fall back on. I took the liberty of changing the owl’s color. I thought purple would be nice against the indigo sky […] more »
Inspired by the Sumi-e paintings I made many years ago, I wanted to experiment with this technique using my collage papers. When working this small, in approximately 5 x 7 sizes, it’s best to limit shapes and not get involved in the details. Sketching from some of the birds outdoors at our feeders, I began […] more »
Recently I decided to continue my train series of paintings and went out to gather more photographs to work from. My main focus was the abstract quality of this boxcar. The shadow shapes were interesting and added strength to the composition. I shot a close up of the brake at the end of the boxcar […] more »
I have always loved the Bird of Paradise flower and wanted to paint it for a long time. It is a bold, tropical blossom and I tried to capture the saturated warm colors of it. I worked from my vacation photograph and challenged myself to use a different format, the square. The background was not […] more »
Sunflowers provide a never ending inspiration; I absolutely love these flowers with their huge heads and bold, bright yellow shapes. My challenge for this piece was the size. Larger paintings are my forte. This is scaled down to 5.25 by 7.5 — very minuscule for me. I edited the seed-head and just added a spiral […] more »
Flowers are one of my favorite subjects. For this collage, I used one of my sketches done in 2005. I love the shapes of tulips and the curved leaf patterns. I did not have a background planned, but improvised one using paper scraps to keep it fresh and exciting. The tiny triangle pieces were nipped from […] more »
This is the first small-sized abstract I have completed in collage. It was inspired by Kandinsky’s work — I love the geometric shapes, the triangles, circles and squares. I began by cutting various shapes and assembling the design. Collage is wonderful for being able to move things around before you permanently adhere the shapes. And […] more »
This is another in a series of the beautiful lotus plant. I usually work from my photo and do a preliminary sketch and simplify shapes. The leaf shapes were edited, as there were too many to add anything extra to the design. The main focus are the buds of these flowers. This collage is done on […] more »
The inspiration for this piece came about while we were on vacation in San Diego last summer. The color of these birds attracted my attention, it was so vivid. Everything about them inspired many sketches. I focused on the head of one bird. Its head and neck are very graceful. No background was planned, but I […] more »
Looking through my sketchbooks, I decided to work from a sketch done around 2005 of my garden tulips. I used an archival matboard for the support, instead of watercolor paper. No background was planned initially; I worked with various paper scraps and color shapes to achieve an unusual background. Leaves are at the edges and […] more »