Waiting for a Haircut

Sketching is a great alternative to impatience. Next time you’re kept waiting, grab a napkin and a pencil and sketch what’s around you. Don’t worry if it looks terrible, that’s what wastebaskets are for. Stay away from facial features — they’ll mess you up every time.

Last Chance Sale! Pets for Fair Voting!

It’s your last chance to reserve a pet portrait during my election sale $250 $195 and have 100% of your money help to “get out the vote” in a top swing state! I have just completed five pet portraits including Baxter (below), and sent all the money to Down Home NC, which empowers and protects rural Black NC voters when they face voting intimidation from white supremacists like the Proud Boys. Your painting can be done now or later, for the holidays or a future gift. Reply to make a reservation now while your money can make a crucial difference.

The Glory of Fall

This Sunday 9/22 was the autumn equinox. Fall is many peoples’ favorite season. The heat of the summer is over, the air is cool and crisp, and the colors of the trees can be magnificent.

My Meditation Altar

For the last seven years, I’ve meditated almost every morning for ten minutes, using an app on my phone (Headspace, Calm and recently Insight Timer). Quieting and centering helps start the day well. A small altar in the corner of the room helps to focus.

Gouache, watercolor, pen, iridescent gold ink.

Airport Surprise

On Friday night I was stuck in the Philadelphia airport, on a connecting flight from Vermont to North Carolina. All the flights kept being delayed, so instead of getting cranky, I decided to sketch the scene outside the window. I had just finished this sketch when I looked up to see a big jet labelled “The United States of America” landing on the runway. It was Air Force Two bringing VP Kamala Harris to Philadelphia to prep for Tuesday’s debate.

The Bittersweet End of Summer

How many of us feel a bit sad when Labor Day comes? Perhaps it’s the echo of all those years at school when we faced months of sitting at our desks all day. Or a wish that we had savored more of those long summer evenings. I sketched this while visiting a friend at her lakefront cottage. Like many of our summer memories, it is a bit idealized.

Coffee Shop Sketching

The contemporary coffee shop is one of the best inventions of the 21st century, don’t you think? Dozens of people sipping lattes while working on their laptops, reading and chatting. This week’s sketch is of a guy sitting at the table next to me. His shirt wasn’t actually orange, and there were no paintings on the wall, but hey, this is sketching, not photography. Do you notice the “lost edge” on his face? Lost edges allow us to use our imagination to fill in the rest.

Portraits for Voting Fairness

Looking for ways to fight voter intimidation in November’s election? I’m commissioning pet portraits (election sale $250 just $195) so you can do just that in the critical swing state of North Carolina. I will donate 100% of proceeds to NC Black Alliance, which stands up to groups who are notorious for their scare tactics. The white supremacist Proud Boys and Oathkeepers park big pickups with racks of guns near the polls, and engage in hate speech to scare Black voters away. Examples of pet portraits are here; reply if you’re interested.

Summer in the City

The art of James Rizzi (1950-2011), which I recently discovered among some used art books, is fanciful and reminiscent of the “Where’s Waldo?” books. It looks fun so I decided to try the style.

$100 original 9″ x 12″ watercolor, 100% to register voters in marginalized communities.

What do you see?

My first day experimenting with soft pastels, which are fun and easy to use.. A frame of artist’s tape until you’re finished keeps the edges clean.

Soft pastels, white acrylic paint, india ink, artist’s tape.

Animals for Voting Rights!

Your dog or cat can help you make sure all humans who want to vote can do so! In North Carolina (where we moved 3 years ago), if you are a person of color, it can be scary to register and vote — from restrictive voter ID laws, to Proud Boys’ pickups trucks near the polls with shotguns in their gun racks. When you commission a pet portrait, 100% will be donated to fight voter discrimination. Election season sale: pet portraits are not $250, but $195. Yesterday I finished this painting of Zeke, a long-haired dachshund, commissioned as a Father’s Day gift.

Farm Fields

For the first Monday in the seven years since I started this blog, I forgot to post my weekly painting on Memorial Day last week!

Drawn by the variation in the fields and sky, I snapped a photo of this view and painted it later in a wide sketchbook. It’s a good example of one-point perspective, as all the lines converge on a single vanishing point in the middle. I find the scene appealing and hope you do too.

Zinnias!

Our Farmer’s Market is starting to sell zinnias in many colors. I began to paint these from the standard side view of the tops of the flowers, the stems and the vase. But that didn’t show much of the flowers so I switched to an aerial view. Isn’t it amazing how intricate and almost mathematical the petals are?

The Many Greens of Spring

Look out your window right now. How many greens do you see? It’s a challenge for painters to portray the many greens of nature: new leaves, mature leaves, evergreen trees, deciduous trees, all sorts of plants, fields, lawns, the effects of light and shade, and more.

Here’s a landscape of patchwork greens followed by a green color chart.

A Medley of Reds

This started with three shades of red acrylic paint (magenta, alizarin crimson and cadmium red) on paper. I made different rectangles, combining reds and diluting some with white. At the end I added some green and white colored pencil. No plan, just following what looked appealing at the moment.

Loving Color

People who love color are drawn to abstracts because they celebrate color without being tied to reality. I discovered the work of Evalyn Boyd recently, and now I’m excited to learn more. Here’s my first.

Acrylic & graphite on 9″ x 12″ canvass, $95. All proceeds to color-blind voter registration.

Lila in Striped PJ’s

Lila has come a long way since I snapped a photo of her learning to read, from which I painted this picture. She’s graduating from high school in June, and has decided to go to North Carolina State University in Biomedical Engineering next fall. Hooray for women in science! Then and now ….

Painting Family

Lila was eight when I took the photo on which this painting is based. She was walking in the woods with her brother Soren (our step-grandson). Now Lila is choosing a college. A magnet on our refrigerator says, “Cherish family, the days are long, but the years are short.”

Sketching People in Color

These figures were my final assignment for a class I just took on sketching people. It’s challenging, but art comes alive when you populate your scene. Sketching moving people is too hard, so I snapped photos on my phone and drew from those, first in pencil (making corrections, especially in proportions), then in pen, finally adding just a few colors, mostly magenta and turquoise.

Sketching People

It’s funny (and sad) how often you see paintings of scenes that look great except that everybody has left town. I’ve been taking a Zoom class called “People Alive!” with the goal of populating sketches with casual figures, and also better understanding how the head changes with different angles. Here’s some of my homework. Not easy! Art is fun and frustrating because you’re never as good as you want to be, and you can keep learning for the rest of your life.

Red Hibiscus

Hibiscus are such beautiful plants, with flowers that only last a day. Is this a metaphor for cherishing the days of our life? Though watercolor is my primary medium, I also love the fluidity and brightness of acrylics. 100% of sales go to voter protection this election year.

6″ x 6″ acrylic on museum board $75. Frame available.

Children Ask the World of Us

This election year I’m offering my art for sale to fund the fight against voter intimidation in North Carolina. Unfortunately, efforts to prevent African-Americans from voting are still common, especially in rural areas of the South.

Original watercolor 8″ x 10″ (fits an 11″ x 14″ frame), $225, 100% to fight voter intimidation. Tax deduction available.

The Magic of Watercolor

A unique feature of watercolor is that, if you pre-wet a shape with clear water before the dropping the paint in, the watercolors will run together and mingle. The paint won’t go where the paper is dry, like the spaces between the tree trunks. Only three colors (red, blue and yellow) were used here, but they mingled to create purple and other shades. That’s one of the reasons I love watercolor.

Daffodils

The daffodils are starting to bloom in North Carolina. Can you tell I painted this quickly? The pencil lines of the sketch (which I didn’t always follow) were left. The background was painted after the flowers, including the negative spaces between the stems, and colors were allowed to run together and form “blossoms.” Watercolor is the only medium which can achieve some of these effects.

Joy and Service

Years ago, when we were both volunteering in prison, I gave this quote superimposed on my painting to Don Miller and others. Last week Don wrote to me saying, “That quote has changed my life.  Thank you so much for giving it to me.” He is now reprinting it and giving it to others. Feel free to do the same.

Just Three Colors

My large piece watercolor paper was divided into four rectangles using artist’s tape. Then I chose three beautiful colors — magenta, lavender and Naples yellow — and layered them in various combinations. The layers make new colors including purples and oranges and neutrals. Which colors dominate in each rectangle?

Lots of lines, a bit of color

Here’s a fun exercise to try yourself. Make lines horizontally and vertically down a page, varying the distance between them. Using colored pencils, markers or paint, choose 3-5 colors and color a few (or a lot) of the spaces between the lines. Quite meditative.

And thanks so much for all the positive replies to my plan in 2024 to offer you affordable art to support color-blind non-partisan voter registration in NC.

$65 original, watercolor and waterproof pen, 6″ x 12″. All sales plus $10 postage.

Hearts & Unrealized Dreams

Martin Luther King Day was last week, but here in North Carolina (where we moved from Boston 3 years ago), King’s dream has yet to be fulfilled. If you are a person of color, it can be scary to register and vote: from inconvenient registration hours, to Proud Boys’ pickups trucks near the polls with shotguns in their gun racks. I hope to partner with you this year so that everyone, regardless of skin color or political party, can vote. So each week my art will be for sale and the price will be listed below the painting (+ $10 postage). 100% of the purchase price will go to non-partisan voter registration in NC. Together, let’s ensure the right to vote for all!

Original 4 1/2″ x 7″ watercolor, $75, 100% to non-partisan voter registration.

My New Year’s Resolutions

Loving my New Year’s resolutions, which I’ve nicknamed “SCREL.” S for Spirit: 10 minutes on meditation (on an app), then writing 3 gratitudes + today’s “to do” list. C for Creating something for 10 minutes. R for a couple of minutes of Remembering a past event in detail. E for 30 minutes of Exercise (walking and/or yoga). L for a few minutes of Learning something new (usually on Wikipedia). About an hour total to create a balanced, healthy day! Here’s today’s Creating, which started with a scribble, then stream of consciousness took over.

The Light Reborn

The Christmas star over the manger, the Hannukah miracle of eight days of light, and the winter Solstice rebirth of the sun — all our December HolyDays have a common theme. May the magic of light glow in your heart.

And Sammie hopes you got toys, rather than coal, in your stocking!

Birch Trees

Playing with background colors and shadows on the birch trees. Preserving the trunks while doing the washes in the background was a bit tricky. (Quality prints 8″ x 10″ $60 or 5″ x 7″ $40 will support fighting racial discrimination in voting. Enquire about original.)

Red Amaryllis

In a flash the day after Thanksgiving, the decor of America’s stores changes from orange, to red and green. I love to buy amaryllis bulbs each year and wait for their gorgeous red blossoms to emerge. Mine are just sending up green shoots, but I found my painting from a previous holiday season.

Lemon Slice

As I painted this, I said to myself: Forget the real background or shadow colors of the lemon I’m looking at (this is art, not photography, after all). Since purple is the opposite of yellow on the color wheel, and how can I mix several shades of bluish purple to make the lemon pop?

6″ x 6″ acrylics on archival board.