art
I’m proud of this painting because I took a lot of chances. I tried some things that didn’t work, but I didn’t give up on the piece. And I’m glad I didn’t because it came together. Thanks to my art group for telling me when it was done.
The first image below was taken with outdoor lighting. The second was taken with indoor lighting.
New work creating a path for 2025. Been working on canvas. Would like to do some large loose canvas pieces. It’s been a while since I’ve worked on anything bigger than 36”x36”.
Still working on canvas right now. I am pleased with how this turned out. I hope you like it, too.
I’ve been thinking about this painting from 2006 a lot lately. I guess it’s the painting I hold all of my others up to. I’m a self-taught artist. I made this when I was learning a lot but didn’t know too much; when I was primarily focused on doing what I could do well. This is the painting that has continued to satisfy me over the years: the one that combined idea, image and other 2D aspects of painting in a way that has kept me thinking about it.
Patriotic Painting, 2006, mixed media on canvas, 40”x30”
Last year at Buckham Gallery’s 40th anniversary celebration, flyers from previous exhibitions were displayed on a partition. The display included a flyer from the summer of 2004 for an exhibition titled Dancing to a Different Drummer, a four or five-person show that included my work. I remember being thrilled to show at Buckham’s old space—a place of which I had fond memories. For the life of me, though, I could not recall what paintings I had shown. My notebooks were usually good for retrieving the details of such events, but I didn’t seem to have any documentation to fall back on. I knew there had to be photos somewhere, but I couldn’t locate any of those, either. Until now. This morning, I stumbled upon a folder that contained pics from the opening. I present them below in fuzzy brilliance as I prepare to show a few paintings in Buckham’s upcoming fundraiser event in March, 2025. The kids were young scenesters, dragged to my art openings, but they usually managed to have fun. The pieces were paintings from 2003-2004. These series can be found in my galleries: scroll to the end for links.
A pic from last year’s anniversary opening.
This painting was 5’x4’ and had recently won Best of Show in the Saginaw County Art Contest.
Scenesters.
I had a severe urge to draw the other day. So I got out the oil paintsticks and a large piece of paper. When I was done the proportions were off, so I decided to move over to a digital format. After taking a photo of the drawing, I uploaded the image to my iPad Pro and continued working on the piece with the drawing tools in Procreate. With sketch, drawing and paint strokes tools, I was able to maintain a lot of the original hand-drawn appearance.
Of course, I couldn’t stop there. Later, I pushed the original digital image in different directions in an effort to continue learning the Procreate tools. It is actually a lot of fun. There is a lot to learn. The results are below.
Original artwork can be found in the galleries and, of course, in the shop.
This painting went through many phases, and I learned some new techniques along the way.
Stellar Nursery, 2024
Lady in Red, 2024
