Radish

Still Life of Dishes

I think they are called "still life" because dishes don't move - another one of their remarkable qualities.

Moonflower

Who I Found in the Garden...

Color Study of Top of Vase

Circles

Anyone who reads this blog may notice that I draw a lot of dishes. This is, in part, because dishes are usually fairly simple objects, and they involve lots of circles. Compositions of circles are interesting and beautiful. Take our solar system, for example: what is it but a composition of spheres?

Remembering Spring

From a picture of buds in bushes taken this spring. This morning, I just really wanted to use pen and ink. There is something satisfying about the black and white, controlled lines of pen and ink. Hm. That sentence makes me sound like a control freak! Hehe. Well, control freaks make art too =).

And Yet Another Head (With a Ceramic Pot)

Truth is, I am not very happy with how the ceramic pot is. It is stronger visually than the head, and I wanted this to be a composition that drew attention to the visual relationship between the two similar objects and the space in between them. Not so successful.
The fact that I post something to my blog does not mean that I am necessarily pleased with it. It just means "this was today's work." Along these lines, I reference one of my favorite quotes lines of poetry. This is from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (East Coker).

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years -
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only leant to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to
conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot
hope
To emulate - but there is no competition -
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again; and now, under
conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Line Drawing with Shadows

My Backpack


This drawing is in honor of my brother Timothy who gave me the backpack.

Another Head

My housemate brought home a head model she borrowed. I'm having so much fun with it that I just might make my own!

Eggplant Dreams (Unfinished)

Two Portraits

Intuitive Non-Dominant Hand Drawing


Profile in Pastel


Both are looking up.

Upside Down Head

An Experiment in Oil Pastel Blending

The Well Know Handle

This blog has morphed into something more specific than I had originally intended. When it began, I just posted images of whatever I was doing that day in the studio. There were lots of pictures of upside-down molds and wet concrete. Now, I try to post finished pieces. The things I post are generally half exercise, half finished (little) works of art. They are made within 20 minutes to 2 hours, and they are in one of the four media I currently have available - pencil, colored pencil, pen, or oil pastel. These pieces are not all I do. There are applied art projects or longer term projects I haven't posted yet. The pieces posted here are generally things that would otherwise have no audience, and the discipline of posting keeps me making. Whoever is reading this, thanks so much for reading! It helps me a lot when family and friends let me know they like things I posted or comment or whatever. It is hard to make art in a vaccum!

The Egg Cup

Starting the Morning Off with a Whole Lot of Red

Stiff Jean Skirt, Crumpled Up

The Babies