I wish for each of you the season's very best delights! I hope your hearts are full, your eyes aglow with joy and you're surrounded by love. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! ...
Oh, my goodness, I have so much to tell you! I've been quiet these last few months as I've been working on opportunities and I finally get to share all the joy with you! To cut down on confusion, I'm going to go in date order so I'm sure to cover all the yummy goodness coming up. You can bet I'll be sharing...
Okay, I'm in serious denial. This is Florida with temperatures in the high 90's, with hurricanes and tropical storms swirling around us, and we don't see Autumn before December (usually) at the earliest...but why let a little thing like reality spoil the party?! I'm going to have myself an An Imaginary Visit Through Autumn and my autumn is going to have cool temperatures, gorgeous...
There will be days when the challenges stack up, left and right. There will be days when it seems easier just to give into the defeat than to keep fighting. There will be days when nothing makes sense and the fight seems pointless. And yet... There will be days when I remember why I do what I do and why I love what...
Two quick reminders for this week! An Imaginary Visit To A Tulip Festival will begin this Thursday! We'll be working with all kinds of bright color both close up and at a distance over a field. We'll also play around with all kinds of greens and how to make them interesting. If this sounds like fun to you, come and join me! Please...
Laying awake last night, I found myself asking the same question over and over. "How do you stop the hate?" What would make a young man so full of hate by the ripe, old age of 29, that he would take it upon himself to kill 49 people while leaving scores more injured? I found no answers. Folks far smarter than me don't...
An Imaginary Visit To A Tulip Festival! One of the coolest things to happen along my artistic path are the connections I've made along the way. It is odd to me that some of my "closest friends" are people who live thousands of miles from me and I only actually see once in a great while, but then to me, that's the real...
Monarch Butterfly on Globe ThistleInk and Watercolor The drawing for this piece of art has been sitting on my desk for a while. It took me a while to realize I was avoiding painting it. In its former life, it was a full page sketch with the background mostly abstract containing suggested shapes and lots of greens, yellows, blues and violets. Meh. It...
From the Imaginary Visit To Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks class* Have you ever found yourself desperately wanting to distract yourself from something ongoing in your life and at the same time you're too distracted to do anything for long? That seems to describe where I've been at for the last few weeks. The few times I've been able to focus has...
I don't know about you, but every once in a while, life gets obnoxiously tedious with lots of little "events" that I could do without. Things that cause small amounts of stress and worry. By themselves, they're no big deal. Unfinished Daffs from 2009 But together, it's like being ganged up on and pecked by a bunch of ducks until I'm a bundle...
Is it my imagination or has the old-fashioned courtesy of taking your hat off when you're inside gone the way of the unicorn? We went to dinner with my father-in-law the other night and I was amazed at the number of guys (and a few gals) with hats on. I drew the two gentlemen in the sketch above simply because they were sitting...
Knowing when to give up and go to the beach...sounds so simple, doesn't it?! And yet most of us just keep slogging rather than taking that much needed break. It's hard to step away even though we may not be at our best and on top of our game. We keep pushing and pushing. Giving ourselves a break is often much easier to...
There are those days...when it seems that despite the very best of efforts, mistakes happen. And let's face it, mistakes are going to happen. They can no more be separated from the creative process than breathing can be separated from living. We're stuck with them...and I dare say that's a good thing! When Mistakes Happen During the last class at Keeton's, I heard...
Can you go wrong with strawberries...and shortcake and whipped cream? Or dipped in chocolate for some decadent yummy? Or just plain berries, fresh from the field?! Strawberries are in season in Florida and our Strawberry Festival starts next Thursday so it's seems the perfect time to add some strawberry-awesomeness to our journal. Berries are a favorite subject of mine because they're easy and...
Alternate Title: Feeding The Fish A fanciful interpretation of a Sheephead Got a few minutes? Let me tell you about our fishing trip last Friday. Our family gave my father-in-law (FIL) a voucher for a fishing trip for his birthday back in September and you know how it goes, we assled (southern word) around and time got away from us. White Egret looking...
An Imaginary Visit To Norway starts March 3rd! Examining My Approach Have you ever given any thought to what your "default" mindset as you get ready to create a piece of art? I didn't when I first started attempted to sketch on location. Prior to these "attempts," I had always been a studio painter. One of two things happened each time I went...
First Up: Quick Lettering Guide Tutorial There are times when I'm out in the field and I don't want to take the time to carefully draw out lines to get a title of type just right. With this in mind, I came up with a quick way to do lettering without having to invest a lot of time. Once your art is complete...
