Although the focus of my work is native plants, which are for the most part delicate, ephemeral and many shades of green with touches of color, sometimes I just want to do something bright and bold. The farmer’s market is my place to go for colorful subjects–carrots, kohlrabi, tomatoes peppers…and those are just the beginning […]
Farmer’s Market Series: Jimmy Nardello Peppers
February 28, 2019 by · 7 Comments
I’ve been wanting to make a series of vegetable paintings with roughly geometric compositions…not the perfect symmetry of say, Ernst Haekel‘s compositions, but something funkier befitting to veggies. The first painting in the series is a round cabbage, so next I wanted something more linear as a contrast. These peppers reminded me of calligraphic strokes…rather […]
A Wild Rose, Rosa nutkana
August 8, 2017 by · 12 Comments
Something catches your eye and you just have to take your chances with it…that’s how it was on a bleak winter day when I was walking across a field of dried grasses. The dense cloud cover made everything look even greyer than it would have otherwise appeared. But I noticed something glowing red in the […]
The March of the Insects
November 19, 2016 by · 4 Comments
Insects keep crawling in…through my sketchbook and into my paintings! I know this sounds like a problem that requires a quick search down a store aisle for a certain spray or powder…but I actually invite the insects into the picture. I want to indicate that these plants belong to a community, to hint that there […]
Lupines, Paper and Masking Fluid
September 23, 2016 by · 9 Comments
After doing detailed drawings, color studies and developing my composition, the next step is to bring the subject to life…to create the illusion of a 3D image on the two dimensional paper. So as I paint, my focus is on light and shadow, which is how we see shapes. Choice of Paper But before I […]
This blog is about my journey as a botanical artist--what I am learning, what inspires me and what I am currently drawing or painting. My desire is to continually hone my skills to better express my wonder and gratitude for the beauty of the creation around me in the Pacific Northwest (USA).