I have been inspired by skyscrapers lately. For this piece, I worked from a photo taken in 2000 of Minneapolis. The design got a bit complicated, so I edited and kept adding shapes while working. My initial design was bare-bones. I attempted to harmonize the colors, but that kept changing too. I’m pleased with the […] more »
The recent heavy rains and flooding in Ames didn’t stop artists from attending the annual Iowa Watercolor Society’s exhibition held Sunday, August 22. Most of the artists with paintings in the show came to the meeting and luncheon. It’s always inspiring to see what paintings get accepted into the show and always surprised with the […] more »
This painting of two pugs, named Winston and Henry, was a commissioned piece. It is to be a wedding gift. Basically, I worked from the provided photo and tried to capture the very expressive faces of the dogs. more »
I read about artists completing a painting every day and wanted to try it. Although, since I had other things going on, it took a couple of days instead of one. This design is a smaller section of the Minneapolis cityscape I’m presently working on. I’m finding it’s a challenge to work this small with […] more »
This week, while working on the Des Moines collage, I started painting more palette papers since I was out of a few earth colors. I got on a roll with painting and decided to do a few more sheets of purples, reds, greens, and blues. In the past, I would lay them on newspapers on […] more »
Continued inspiration of the urban landscapes. I used a photo take many years ago and loved the view from the parking ramp with all the intricacies of the city — the sky walk, rooftops, capitol dome — all the geometric shapes and shadows. more »
In this view, I used a photo taken of downtown Des Moines a few years ago from the top of a parking garage. The architecture and building forms interested me. The panoramic view from above was inspiring! Of course, I took artistic liberty with most of the building colors and used a strong value pattern […] more »
This design started horizontal, but I decided to change the format and the initial sketch. I thought it would be more dramatic as a vertical composition. I took the photo of this old dairy barn many years ago on a trip to the historic barn in Cantril, Iowa. On the way home, the sky turned […] more »
This piece was inspired by an old bicycle I saw at Bradley Hall. I took a variety of pictures, including the interesting shadow shapes, and then did a preliminary watercolor painting. After this, I did some loosely sketched contour drawings of this bike and didn’t plan a design to work with, as I usually do. […] more »
I began demonstration painting at Bradley Hall in early June. The area where I paint is next to my rented spot on the second floor. I decided to paint a recognizable local scene of the Centerville square — just a small section of it. After doing a fairly exact sketch, I have been working on […] more »