Graphite Portrait

Masheka, graphite on Canson paper, 9x12"
collection of the model

Charcoal Figure Study

Michelle on a futon, charcoal and white conte on Rives BFK
about 24x18", November 2008

Portrait of JFK

James, charcoal on Rives BFK, about 11X14"
(40 minute timed sketch), November 2008
collection of JFK

I have wanted to draw James since he first walked into my class in August.
Fantastic bone structure and a lot of fun to draw. Nice guy, too.

Profile of Babs

Babs, profile, charcoal on Rives BFK,
(30 minute timed sketch) November 2008
about 11X14", collection of the model.

Fauna....sprawling...:-)

Fauna, sprawling (30 minute timed sketch)
watercolor, about 24x18", November 16, 2008

Terry

Terry, sitting (unfinished and aka Bob :- )
nu pastel on red sanded pastel paper, about 18x24"

On view at Ross Gallery/CPCC through Dec. 19

These portraits are on view in Ross Gallery at CPCC until December 19.

Michelle with Red Kimono (reflected light)

Michelle with Red Kimono (reflected light)

Nupastel on red sanded pastel paper, about 18x24", Nov. 2008
Collection of MH (Happy Birthday!)

Still euphoric from Obama's win on Tuesday, I decided to play with color.
Working like this is the closest I will ever get to flying, I think.

Eye Candy

Wolves, colored pencil, about 16x20", 1995
Commissioned by 3D Brands, location unknown

Still recovering from surgery two weeks ago (!), so here is some old work eye candy for you. This was an illustration commissioned to go on one of those nature t-shirts/sweatshirts. I believe the company was bought out soon after the work was commissioned, and I have no idea if it was ever actually printed.

Campus Scene #2

oil on canvas, 24x48", 2005
Collection of Central Piedmont Community College
currently hanging in lobby of IT Building

Campus Scene #1
oil on canvas, 40X60", 2005
Collection of Central Piedmont Community College
currently hanging in Overcash, 3rd floor

Peggy Rivers asked me to come with her on a little field trip today. She was taking her Landscape painting class to view two paintings of mine that were commissioned by CPCC in 2005. The paintings were intended to hang together in the lobby of the IT Building, but were separated about a year ago. It's been a long time since I've listened to someone critiquing my work! Of course, it wasn't a real critique, as they were way too positive, but it's nice to look back at work completed three years ago, and realize it's a little like seeing a long lost child. I remember many of my thought processes...which surprised me a little---since I seem to forget everything else. I remember exactly how and why I painted the tree and mulch the way I did; why I chose the colors I chose. I can remember the brushes I used the most. It made me realize that I can actually remember that about almost all of my work. Yet I can't remember what I did for my last birthday, or what I had for breakfast this morning. Of course, I can look at it and see things I should have changed in some way, but I also noticed areas that make me back to the moment I painted it. And it all just makes me want to paint a whole lot more.

Retrouvaille, number four

Retrouvaille, number four

watercolor on 300 lb Arches, 8x10", september 29, 2008 at 9:30pm
A very hard day.

Terry, sleeping

Terry, sleeping

conte on canson paper, 11x14", september 26, 2008

This 45 minute study was done with conte: sanguine, brown, white and just a touch of black. I like the way the reflected light is working here. And I love drawing Terry---great model :-)

Unfinished Sketch of Terry

Unfinished Sketch of Terry, sitting

colored pencil on canson paper, 11x17", september 26, 2008

Greta, sitting

Greta, sitting

18x24", black and white conte, september 21, 2008

one hour figure study
(I mangled the paper by dropping it afterwards....there is a crease on her jawline from paper damage)

How Many Routes to Home?

Yesterday as I sat in Charlotte traffic, allowing my mind to wander, I started to think about how much nicer it would be to live in the country again. No traffic lights, no honking cars...only one or two routes to get where you're hoping to go. To be able to look at trees, and streams and notice that Mr. Sparkman had deer in his yard. It takes 30 minutes to commute to work about 10 miles from my doorstep....on really bad days, it takes up to an hour. Once or twice I've turned around and worked from home.

I sat through yet another traffic light; NPR droning on from the radio, and tried to think objectively. If there is a traffic issue on one route, I can usually find another route pretty easily. When I lived on top of the mountain, we had to time our morning commute very carefully. You had to be sure to leave before Mr. Slone (an alias, of course) had crossed over the mountain. He drove a steady 15 miles an hour at all times, all weather. Because the roads were so curvy and narrow, it was almost impossible to pass him. If you didn't time it right to be in front of him, you were taking in the world at a snails pace. It would take 30 minutes or more to go anywhere. You had time to note the trees as well as the garbage that had been dumped beside the road. You had a chance to realize that the deer in the yard were plastic (still love the "No hunting" sign), and note the houses that were being well maintained, as well as the ones that weren't. While it was frustrating to be caught behind this one man traffic snarl, it was kind of funny too. You didn't feel so pressured that you had to get somewhere, and you could see the humor of it.

Now I fight that feeling of pressure all the time. It seems like I'm always running late, and there's never enough time and energy to do what needs to be done. I don't always take time to notice when there are trees, streams and parks. I don't always really look at the public art (both good and bad) like I should. It's interesting to take a different route every so often just to note the new commercial and residential construction that sprouts up every day. But often I'm so focused on getting there, it's all a blur.

Maybe that's what makes the mountain home...that the feeling that life is something to experience rather than a destination that must be achieved at a certain pace. Maybe I should notice what's around me at traffic lights and jams rather than wasting my energy on being frustrated about not being there when I'd planned.

Belated Happy Birthday, Maureen!

Lucy and Pat
watercolor, 11x14", september 13, 2008

Michelle, reclining

Michelle, reclining

ink on Arches 140lb watercolor paper, 16x20", september 12, 2008

From the book "For the Time Being" by Annie Dillard

"Throughout my whole life", he noted later [French palentologist Teilhard de Chardin], "during every minute of it, the world has been gradually lighting up and blazing before my eyes, until it has come to surround me, entirely lit up from within."

Retrouvaille, number three

Retrouvaille, number three

graphite on grey canson paper, heightened with prismacolor and nupastel, 9x12", september 10, 2008

Unless we are very, very careful, we doom each other by holding onto images of one another based on preconceptions that are in turn based on indifference to what is other than ourselves. This indifference can be, in its extreme, a form of murder and seems to me a rather common phenomenon. We claim autonomy for ourselves and forget that in so doing we can fall into the tyranny of defining other people as we would like them to be. By focusing on what we choose to acknowledge in them, we impose an insidious control on them. I notice that I have to pay careful attention in order to listen to others with an openess that allows them to be as they are, or as they think themselves to be. The shutters of my mind habitually flip open and click shut, and these little snaps form into patterns I arrange for myself. The opposite of this inattention is love, is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.

Anne Truitt, Daybook, 1982

Retrouvaille, Number Two

Retrouvaille, number two

watercolor, 11x14", september 9, 2008

"Of all the Ten Commandments, 'Thou shalt not murder' always seemed to me the one I would have to worry the least about, until I got old enough to see there are many different kinds of death, not all of them physical. There are murders as subtle as a turned eye. Dante was inspired to install Satan in ice, cold indifference being so common a form of evil."

Ann Truitt, Daybook, 1982

Self-Portrait

Retrouvaille, number one
watercolor, 11x17", Sept. 7, 2008

Terry, Resting

Terry, Resting

graphite on canson paper; about 11x14"

I don't recall ever doing a portrait at this angle before....the total image is larger, but I've cropped it here to reinforce an intimate quality. The nervous twitch that has captured my head and my hand for these last months is flickering into something resembling fluid motion again. And I remember why I do what I do.

Farrell Family Portrait Drawing

Farrell Family Portrait Drawing
Colored pencil on canson paper, 22x28

Life has a way of......

Life has a way of kicking you in the a**, and showing you in technicolor just how far you've meandered from the path you thought you were on. I haven't even looked at this blog since May 1. Life has been coming at me with body punches and frequent kicks in the teeth. I can't escape it, so I might as well put on some body armor and fight the good fight. In the past month or so I have discovered that I'm stronger than I thought I was, physically and mentally. And, after a month or so of not even walking into my studio, I've begun to work again. So, I will be posting in between the future body blows (I'm sure there are many more to come).

Oil sketch of Yll and Fiola

Sketch of Yll and Fiola, oil on canvas, 16x20"

I only had about an hour an a half to get them on canvas, so it's pretty rough! But there is something about it I like...maybe just that it was FUN. And they are a lovely, sweet and interesting couple---she is much prettier than I portrayed her though.

Marilyn

Marilyn, pencil on canson paper, @ 11x14"

Nicole

Nicole, watercolor, 16x20"

I think I've found my new favorite way to work....after watching a demo by Jon Houghton, I just threw the paint on the paper. I am liberated!

Carolina

Carolina, charcoal, 18x24"

Sweet Carolina agreed to pose for a demo on portraits for my class........

Jamie and Julia

oil on canvas, 30x40", Private Collection

detail

detail

Exposing Scarlet; CPCC Responds

This image is on display in Pease Gallery through March 31, as part of Artsfest at CPCC. Please visit Exposing Scarlet: A Visual Response to the Scarlet Letter in Ross Gallery, and CPCC Responds in Pease Gallery.

Portrait of My Mother, For My Daughter

pearls, watercolor on 300lb Arches paper, mounted on canvas, 24x30"

One day I found a sweet looking photograph of my mother as a child. “Are you holding a doll in this picture?” I asked. “No” she said. “I’m holding my dead sister”. It was common in Appalachia during that time to record life and death through a photograph. As I read the Scarlet Letter, I was conscious of the role of nature and the impact of civilization. Nature takes without conscious thought or deliberation, as with my little aunt I never knew. Pearl, regardless of her conception, survives by nature’s whim. Today, nature doesn’t always decide fate…she could be created in a test tube or vacuumed from her mother’s womb. In regards to nature and science, I do not propose that one is good and the other bad…they are simply facts of life today. Portrait of My Mother, For My Daughter acknowledges the grace that allows my mother, myself and my daughter to survive by nature’s whim and without civilization’s intervention. The pearls in the painting represent the lives that are not so fortunate.

Missing Mountains, mother cries

Missing Mountains (mother cries), 2007
collage; oil pastel, coal, thread
This image was exhibited at the America Recycles exhibit in November, 2007---I'm late putting it up.

Here is an article about work....http://www1.cpcc.edu/spark/features/art-instructor-finds-inspiration-from-childhood/

detail of Missing Mountains (mother cries). This image is made up of xerox copies of aerial images of strip mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. The forested area is compiled of views around my parents home. Dad found the lump of coal for me.

Watercolor Demo----"High Rocks"

High Rocks, Pippa Passes, KY

watercolor on 300lb Strathmore cold press paper, about 20 x 16"
landscape demo for my watercolor class

Detail of "Meet in the Forest"

Detail of Meet in the Forest.
I think the previous post doesn't really show the cool texture of this drawing....

Sketch for "Couple"

Sketch for Couple, watercolor about 16x20", 2008

Meet in the Forest

Meet in the Forest, watercolor, 11x17", 2008
For upcoming Exposing Scarlet exhibit at Pease Gallery

St. Francis at Whitman Ranch, Christmas 2007

St. Francis at Whitman Ranch, Christmas 2007

watercolor, about 5x7"

It was just me, St. Francis and the fat little squirrel who watched the sun rise on that foggy morning. What a lovely way to start a freakin' cold day....:-)

Watercolor Sketch of Jo and Al Whitman

Jo and Al, Christmas, 2007
watercolor, about 5x7"

This was just a quick sketch done while they weren't paying attention, though Jo caught on later on........

NCCC Exhibit

Veil, oil on canvas, 30x40", 2006

Veil has been chosen for a year long exhibit in Raleigh. It is part of the Trappings series.