Marble #1

My first attempt at glass.

Marble #1 Pastel on Wallis 4"x 4"

Original available

More backyard wildlife

And to think that I have the audacity to wonder why I don't have as many songbirds as usual...

My life...in turkey hell...

Ok...maybe it is just me...but when most artists look out their studio window, they see a beautiful landscape. I, however, see this. An obnoxious turkey who is p-o'd that there is no corn out there for him. They actually peck on the window now. It is starting to look like "The Birds" out there.

Lab painting

I am doing a series of dog paintings for a company, I thought I would share the process with you. I first start with a rough pencil on my board. Here, I am using Ampersand cradled gesso board, 6x6. I then rough the image in with turp and color. From there, I build depth with layers, or glazes, of color. Finally, I add the highlights.

Backyard visitors...

We are going through hundreds of pounds of corn, peanuts, and sunflower seeds a week. I put out 100 pounds of corn on Tuesday morning and it was gone by Wednesday morning. Between the deer, racoons, turkeys, opossums, and birds, I can not keep up. I love having all the animals around us, but they are making us broke!!!

The art of listening (Re post from 2005)

I posted this in 2005, and seeing how it is the holiday season and we are all feeling the warmth of family, friends and home, I felt the need to re post. In the wake of what seems a wave of friends passing away, I thought this might be appropriate...

I recently busted my low carb lifestyle and dove into a huge plate of Chinese food. My passion. Put me on a desert island with a lifetime supply mu shu pork and don't even bother to send a rescue boat. At the end of the meal, I opened my fortune cookie and was totally taken off guard. We all know the silly fortunes that you can get, or the ones that say, "You will win the lottery today" but this one was really special. It simply read, Discover the world of your friends around you. Maybe this doesn't hit you like it did me, but I have for the longest time thought that we are so busy with our own lives, we lose sight of the world surrounding our friends. I have a friend that does not know the first thing about horses, nor does she really care. But she always makes a point of asking me about my horses and listens in earnest about my last horse show. That is so special. In return, I listen in earnest to her stories of her children and the nightmare of potty training, even though I have no kids of my own and have no idea where she is coming from. See how that works? When we step away from that which is interesting only to us, and learn to love the the things that our friends love, we become better friends and better people. So what if you don't care about fishing...if your best friend loves it, listen and learn. Who knows, you may learn to love it too? How boring would it be if all our friends had our same interests in every way? I love my friendships with whom I have very little in common. Yes...you read it right. I learn new ways of thinking from them, a new point of view. If the only people that I hung out with were people of like minds...how boring would that be? Take a step outside of what you know...listen, really listen, to your friend's passions. Re-learn the art of listening, and you might just be surprised by what you find out about yourself.

Inspiration....

I am often asked who is my inspiration, or what work inspires me...? How can I answer that question? I find inspiration in a sunset, or a friend's twinkle in their eye. If I had a go to artist that I look to when I feel lost, it is definitely William Bouguereau. When I was a kid, my family used to go to the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, OK. While my family wandered on, I sat in front of his painting, Young Shepherdess, for what seemed hours. The glow of her skin, the texture of her clothes, everything about the painting excited me. Then I read this quote from him, and I understand the connection that I have always felt with him.

"Each day I go to my studio full of joy; in the evening when I am obliged to stop because of darkness I can scarcely wait for the morning to come...my work is not only a pleasure, it has become a necessity. No matter how many other things I have in my life, if I cannot give myself to my dear painting, I am miserable." William Bouguereau

I wish I could say that I went to my studio with this kind of passion every day, but it does happen every now and then. To live in a state of pure inspiration and enlightenment is a goal that I strive for. I believe that when we see artists of this level of talent, we can get a glimpse of the gift that they have been blessed with.