Little Ellie

This is my recent favorite. I worked from a photo from years ago that I saw in Ellie's scrapbook while visiting. I photographed the photo and worked from that changing the background entirely as the original was all dark. Hope Ellie likes it!

Here is one in strong contrast to the carefully drawn and painted flowers. This was a "just for fun" starting with no plan and see where it goes - any ideas for a title?

Here are two new florals from recent efforts. Both were begun in a class I was giving at church (Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, Florida). Both were started by drawing from actual flowers brought to class, unlike some previous ones begun with no planning and little or no drawing.

Here are three paintings from the Joe Fettingus workshop I attended last week. We worked from photographs in a step by step format.




I was reminded of some important compositional cues like the strategic placement of repeating dark, medium and light values.





We worked very "wet in wet" most of the time and I was reminded of the aproximately 3 minute window of opportunity that once shut, requires one to let things dry before continuing.

University Club Show

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted. Here are a couple of photos of the show at the University Club in Winter Park. I had 28 paintings in the show - all watercolors. It ran through the month of September.

Here is a photo and close up shot of the bra I designed for "Braz for a Cauz." Florida Hospital is calling for artistically designed bras that will be acutioned and funds applied to underserved women getting access to annual mammograms. My design continues my garden theme from recent paintings, and has a sort of Victorian appeal.

I am posting this larger because it's on a full size sheet of watercolor paper. I really enjoyed working large for a change (about 22"x 29"). I hadn't done a figure for some time so that was a nice change too. I liked working with the contrasts between the smooth white fabric and organic jumble of florals, but think the most successful part is the unfinished watercolor look in the background.

Just for fun I've been cutting plastic grocery bags into strips and crocheting bags and rugs - here are a couple of samples.

This is the finished painting that I was working on as the photo was taken at the Maitland Art Center. I started it with just some blobs of yellow and pink and then continued to add negative space lines and shapes.

These are recent paintings that were begun at the Tom Jones workshop last month. They are currently a part of my exhibit on display at the Winter Park Hospital.

This is the abstract floral that will be displayed at the Maitland Art Center for the "PARTICIPATION" event May 3-16th. I was delighted to be chosen as one of the 25 artists to be featured for this big annual fundraiser at MAC. It will be fun to do paintings in the park Saturday, the 16th, for patrons who buy my time at auction.

This is "Garden of Eden" naturally named because of the snake form that emerges from among the leaf forms. It started out like several others in the "Garden" series with plastic over multi-colored washes.

This is "Garden of Delights" the first in the "Garden" series, that was begun by using experimental techniques instead of a specific plan. For this painting I used plastic wrap over a multi-colored wash. When dry the plastic is removed and the painting sort of tells me what it wants to become. It's then my job as an artist to decide where to apply color in values of light and dark so that everyone else will be able to see what I see. This painting was recently selected for a National Museum of Women in the Arts show at the Gateway Center for the Arts.

This is a painting of our dog, Holmes, or "Sherlock Holmes" formally. I was experimenting with a three color palate and was happy with how the dark burgundys looked for shadowy areas.

This is a watercolor done from a photo of the Iowa farm taken in June - loved the shadows!

This is a watercolor done last year worked from a photo I took while visiting at the farm in Iowa in January. I had a great time sledding with Paige and Gwen. That Spring there were massive floods in the area around Cedar Rapids and Vinton, but the farm was high an dry.

This is a watercolor done from a photo of a Double Hybiscus that I took while it was growing in my patio. I also had some tiles made from this image and was very happy with the colors.

Floral

This is a recent watercolor worked from a photo taken of the cactus that bloomed next to the house. It only blooms at night, but the blooms are large and beautiful for one night and then die within a day or two.