Matchbox designs

Uppercase has a competition going with old school matchbox designs. These are the three I sent in today.

LANDSCAPE SERIES- NEW BEGINNINGS

I decided to post all together what I think is a new turn in my work...landscape/cityscapes.

I am really loving working on these. They really capture the essence of what I loved about all of my still life paintings....texture, pattern, juxtaposed spaces, fused elements, flattened elements .....it's coming together. I plan on making lots more.

Small Works

A few small still life paintings that I wrapped up and am submitting to a show in Iowa City for a small works show.

Starting to move into another line of work that is more landscape based, but I continually come back to these again and again.

Installation in Jax

This is a long overdue post. Now that the moving has transpired and I am settling in, I had time to organize images from the installation I did at Nullspace Gallery before I left. It was a crazed week of building, printing, painting, worrying, packing, and recruiting the help of Sarah, Hal, and Joe to help me pull the whole thing off...not to mention a lovely dinner delivered in the midst of it all by Cam. So, thanks to all for that.

The title of the show was "All Things Near and Far" and it revolved around all things disaster-related.....big ones, little ones, personal disasters, emotional ones, trivial ones, and significant ones.......

Tree day.

A few days ago, I went out to Sugar Bottom near Lake Macbride to study trees. I didn't really think of it much, but I guess what I'm doing sort of feels like a little science experiment. Usually, I compose images, draw the whole, so to speak. Lately, though I have decided to study one thing at a time....to take some time with an individual thing in the spaces I observe...a flower, a plant, a tree...Drawing feels a bit like meditating lately. I like that. It is just such an great intense period of focus like no other part of my day. Someone once said that drawing is like "physical empathy." I could not put it any better. 

Today, I decided to stick around the yard at home for my drawing session...mostly because I was waiting for the cable guy to come between 8-12 (which he never did). Oddly, trying to get your cable disconnected is not one of the high priority jobs on the cable company's list. Go figure. 

Anyway, I decided to go away from the washy, fluid approach of the last few days and go graphic, using black and white only on one. The light this morning was really amazing and creating these patterns across the leaves.

 On the other I did some direct tracing...love love love that static look, and then worked back into it with gouache and ink. 

Summer!

New watercolors from an outing in Coralville. Prairie grasses and beautiful flowers from the community garden just a short jaunt away! 

New beginnings

a shot of the newly planted garden and a beautiful plate of southern home cookin at Swett's in Nashville!! mmmm.......heard about it on The Splendid Table on NPR. We took a detour on our trip up to Iowa......it was worth it! 

Lanscape Drawing with Drawing I

An ink drawing done with a skewer. I had become so accustomed to using my nice lil pen and all the nice lil tips, that I forgot how much I like drawing with ink and q-tips and skewers. Also, it was just a beautiful day in sunny, sunny Florida. Birds chirped, leaves rustled, and a woodpecker provided a percussion-like background beat.

University of Wyoming, direct trace monotypes and a landscape using acrylic inks and watercolor from a spot on the last day of Ragbrai last year. Good times.