My sketchbooks are a place of pure play for me. Sketching is a way to experience where I am, a way of relating to where I live, what I’m doing, and where I’m going. With a sketchbook available, I always have entertainment – sketching people while waiting in line at Costco or the back of a pickup truck when stuck in traffic.

My sketchbox has traveled to Japan, Central America and Europe, and I can look at these and I’m immediately drawn back to what it was like to be there. I can remember exactly what was going on around me, even though it was years ago.

Oils and pastels

What sparks me in painting is light, color and design, but color is often the biggest grabber.  The strongest influence on my work came from Ron Lukas, with whom I studied color and color relationship for many years.  From him I learned the excitement of how colors affect each other, and the relationship of light and shadow.

Painting allows me to pick and choose the kind of color world I want to be in.  On a dark grey day, I can choose to be with reds and yellows and magentas.  How good is that?!

For years, I was fascinated with pastel because it allowed hands-on sculpting with almost pure color.  More recently I’m pulled back into oil because of the color nuance and control it offers.

Coming Unravelled, and a Rhodie




Hotties

                                    Lemon Tea

Balance.

These were several from a series inspired by our garden one summer. 
 I wanted to play with visual paths and negative shape. 
 Each of the jars began to take on a personality.






Figures in Pastel

Even Cowgirls get the Blues

I don't know how the model held this pose for so long,
just sitting on the arm of the chair.  I loved the color!



Colored pencil

Crazy tatoos....

And pretty crazy hair....

Finding the future in a magenta..crystal ball.

Ben

The Photographer

The Traveller

And the Musician



Yomi