Lately...

I've been working on multiple projects in the pockets of time I can find between traveling, working and the plethora of other things sucking up my time and keeping me away from my studio.

My participation in the Index Card a Day challenge has fallen completely by the wayside, but I'm honestly OK with that as I didn't care for the way I was approaching the challenge; it just didn't feel 'right' to me. I'd slap something together for the sake of slapping something together in order to avoid missing a day and not take the 10 - 20 minutes to mindfully set time aside for making art. When I'm feeling ready to do just that, I'll start over on my own.

In the meantime, here are some completed and in-progress pieces I've done recently:

Morning Zen - Done at a friend's request. Oil Pastel on Watercolor Paper. (When you run out of Mixed Media paper, you improvise!)


Morning Doodle. I've missed doing daily pages more than I realized, I need to get back in to the habit of doing them. Also? That's my favorite coffee mug; I have a mild (ok, massive.) obsession with bees.


Two works in progress and a repair on a very old piece that had faded due to my use of the wrong paint on the wrong canvas type. As I've said before, I never seem to be able to just work on one thing at a time.


Desert Healing. Acrylic on 16x20 stretched canvas.

And this last one, which is a massive work-in-progress that I don't see myself finishing in the very-near future because it's moving something in me that requires I take my time and really listen to my gut as far as colors and styles go. To be honest, I love it just as it is currently and would leave it just like this, but I have the urge to keep going with it and so, I will.

For a little while I wrestled with what colors to make it, if I was going to make it colorful at all. I over-thought it to the point of asking friends what they thought and, of course, every one that had an opinion had a different one. In the end, I just went with what felt most natural and am planning to work it up in monochrome, of a sort. The colors between figures may vary slightly, but will be in the same family. Unless something changes, which it very well could. My artwork seems to have a mind of its own lately and things have changed dramatically in the middle or near-end (or so I thought) of a piece. Sometimes it's frustrating, but often it's an interesting process.

Acrylic on 24x48" stretched canvas, extremely, heavily inspired by My Chemical Romance's album The Black Parade; which has been set to loop while I've been painting. The photo colors are a bit funky as my iPhone doesn't like my bright green studio walls overly much. ;-)

Not sure what this will ultimately be titled, but the working title (and subsequent tag for any updates I may write on it) is 'Love and Death'. As always, it's open to evolving.