Watercolor: Painting in the Canyon

Painting in the Canyon 6x6 watercolor on Fabriano paper
Available here.
Sold
Towsley Canyon is in the Santa Susanna Mountains a few miles from my studio. If you pack bug spray, a camera and painting gear, there are landscape, creek and mountain views aplenty for a painter.

Watercolor: Aaron's Clown

Aaron's Clown 7 x 7.5 Watercolor on Arches Hot Press paper
Commission

Watercolor: Ivy

Ivy 2.75 x 3.5 Watercolor on Bristol paper
A teeny little portrait of my Great Aunt Ivy as a young woman, leaving Great Britain for America in 1919. Her passport application lists Eyes: hazel, Hair: Red-Brown, Nose: Long, Complexion: ruddy-pale. She had a miscarriage enroute, but her baby daughter Violet landed safely at Ellis Island with her.
Available for sale here.
Sold

Watercolor: Pomegranates from Arizona

Pomegranates from Arizona 6 x 8 Watercolor on Lana Aquarelle paper
Sold
My friend VLB sends photos of the fruit from her Arizona Garden as still life painting fodder. Lucky me. Pomegranates seemed just right as a subject this season and I wanted to try this Lana paper. I couldn't lift color at all - the pigments sink right into the paper, and they're considerably lighter when they dry. I discovered that glazing has to be done cautiously to preserve whites and lighter areas, with drying time between layers to see where the values landed.

Self Portrait & a Glue Collograph

Self Portrait with Fingerprints (detail) 11x14 Charcoal on Drawing paper
My friend JMC has been hounding me to practice drawing more, so I sketched this last night with my own very-cheap modeling services.

Nonotuck Street 5.25 x 5 Glue Collograph with Watercolor & Colored Pencil (Edition of 2)
An emailed cell phone snap shot of the last flower in the garden from a friend in New England inspired this little interior still life. Process shots are below.
Available for sale here.

A sketch in felt marker on a scrap piece of matboard is re-drawn in Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive. After drying over night, the plate is sealed (front and back) with Liquitex Gloss Medium & Varnish. The matboard is now a printable plate, ready for all sorts of inks, paints and pigments; anything that will transfer to paper under the pressure of a press or a hand rubbed baren, etc.

After the plate is inked - using transparent black, a la poupee' style (with rolled felt dollies to vary the amount of pigment in different areas), a sheet of soaked and blotted paper is laid on top of the inked surface and run through a press. The result is on the left. After the print dried, I added watercolor & colored pencil. Creative license is at every threshold of this process. There are more step by step details in a previous post here.

Watercolor: Respite

Respite 6 x 6.25 Watercolor on Lana Paper
Sold
After three sequences of house guests, and too much delicious food, I'm dreaming of beds.