I was inspired to do this collage because my main focus lately has been botanicals, and we have planted part of an acre of our property dedicated to wildflowers, hoping to bring more butterflies and bees to our area. more »
I'm always inspired to paint fresh flowers from my garden. The colors are vivid and luscious, and that is what I try to capture in my paintings. The shapes, leaves and stems -- all the details inspire me to paint and draw these natural forms. more »
The challenge of this sunflower series is designing a fresh and interesting collage worthy of this bold and beautiful flower. I never tire of drawing these large blooms and all their interesting details. more »
The inspiration for this painting is the flower: hollyhocks. I am quite fond of these old-fashioned flowers. I love the saucer shapes of the blossoms, the buds, leaves -- every details describes this wonderful flower! more »
Usually I begin with the flowers and work my way around the design. This one was different -- the vase was the focus. I changed the peonies to dahlias; the shape reminded me of the full, spidery petal shapes. Red-painted daisies were added to the bunch. more »
I am continuing my bicycle series and loved the challenge of doing a smaller piece. I began with a simple line drawing of a bicycle close-up and started gluing some of the positive shapes. Halfway through gluing, I decided to add another smaller bike above it — a bit of a squeeze, but it adds […] more »
I’m back doing the exotic animals. These birds were designed in 2007 and I’m finally getting around to completing the collage. I chose it for their colorful pink, long-necked bodies and legs, having some fun with changing some of the colors. They seem to be dancing and fluttering with movement. For the background, I decided […] more »
My work in collage has been inspired by many artists. Some of these are Matisse, Romare Bearden, Joan Miró, Edward Betts and Gerald Brommer. The definition of “collage” is a picture built up wholly or partly from pieces of paper, cloth or other materials stuck on canvas or other ground. Collage as a medium emerged […] more »
Last Saturday was a great day for the outdoor Art Festival in Ottumwa. Sunshine, little winds, and temps in the mid 70’s — we couldn’t get better weather! I really appreciated this since this was the first time I set up my new ProPanels display. Most of the artwork I brought were my acrylic collages […] 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 »