Portrait Update

I've been working on this a lot...I think it is significantly improved.  I'm ignoring the necklace for now.  Working predominantly on the face, spending a lot of time staring at her and making very small adjustments.  Sometimes I feel like she is going to start talking to me :)

New Collages

I had fun with these last week. By the time I was done, my hands were as covered as the paper. I have them"posed" for the photo with a white mat...I think they would look great with a black mat, but I don't feel like digging through boxes to find one, so the white mat will have to suffice for now.

The Bitch is Back:

My Confession:

Conceptual Collage

I am still working from the book Art from Intuition by Dean Nimmer. One of the exercises was to do 10 small collages from which one might choose to develop into a painting.

These are the first two.
After this, I fell back to cut paper collage, using primarily magazine paper. I love working with magazine paper. With these, I was working on developing lines that continue onto other pieces.


If you are actually counting, there are only 8 of them, not 10. Still working on the last two. Regardless of how random these may look, this is actually a fairly time consuming process...looking for shapes and colors that work together. It's almost like doing a puzzle. I have been working on these a few minutes at a time, like maybe 20 minutes in the morning while drinking my coffee.

Watercolor with Sumi and Hake Brushes

Thank you to Traci Bautista for this week's video lesson. The "aha!" moment for me was when she pulled out her sumi brush. I had sort of "forgotten" or been distracted from my eastern brushes lately. This is just a quick playful watercolor painting I did this morning, and it gave me such joy to do it.

New Paintings

Since my class with Doree Loschiavo a couple of months ago, I am still totally hooked on playing with watercolors and water soluble crayons. I've continued doing these types of paintings...these are 2 of my recent favorites.

Experiment and Create Workshop

On Friday 10/28, I attended a workshop at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford, PA. The instructor was a very nice lady named Doree Losciavo. At first, she just kind of painted and we watched her, and then she told us to start...just start.

Lately, I like to use reference photos, not because I'm trying to copy the photos literally, but just to get ideas of colors and relationships of objects to each other. The photo is just inspiration to get started. This helps me get past the "what to paint?" The finished product looks very little like the photo.

These are the 3 pieces I finished in the class. Not the best photos, but they suffice, I think. The first 2 are watercolor, water soluble crayon and collage. The third, just watercolor and water soluble crayon. This is the first time in years I have collaged into a painting. I think it's important, if collage is added, that it be integrated into the surface and not appear as a crafty looking add-on.


This last piece is shown with a mat that is really too small for it. It's a 12x16" mat, which cuts off too much of the picture, but the 16x20" mat was too big. I just used the small mat for the photo, but would like to get one that fits it better.

Painting on Unprimed (Raw) Canvas

This is what I painted in painting class last week. The instructor provided us with some raw canvas to paint on, as inspired by the famous painter Helen Frankenthaler. Thin watery paint bleeds into the canvas while thicker applications remain on the surface. At one point she asked me what it was that I was painting, and my response was "some kind of sunset thing". I actually turned it upside down to add darker colors to the "ground", and when flipped upright, the canyon kind of miraculously appeared. Since the canvas is unstretched, I could have it stretched onto some stretcher bars, but I think I will likely do is get the old sewing machine out at some point and make a wall hanging out of it. Really happy with this painting.

Latest Painting from Painting Class

I painted this in the session where we were experimenting with painting in layers. This painting is based on one painted by Patrick McFarlin (http://www.mcfarlinoil.com/). I love some of his landscapes (in his work file called "Flatlands"). This is not a direct copy of the painting he did, but very similar.

Art Classes

I started a basic drawing class and also a painting class the first week of January. These are the result of this week's efforts.

The drawn still life is just a rough draft, done in charcoal. We will be continuing to work on it. Photo is just a bit blurry. I had a lot of difficulty with the pitcher. I just couldn't seem to get the handle on it oriented properly, but I think it's pretty good now :)


I am pleased with this fruit painting from last night. I wish the pear were prettier, but in real life it just wasn't a very pretty plastic pear. At least it makes the lemon shine nicely.

Overall, for someone who is not comfortable with realism, I'm pretty happy with my results! I think it's also good for me to push my boundaries like this. I think it will help my abstract painting immensely.

Art Snax

This is one of my latest projects. Saving the sweet little pieces that end up in my scrap/collage bin. These little guys are only 2.5 by 3 inches in size. I didn't like my signature in black on the top one, reapplied it in bronze. It looks better now.