Another piece from my vernal pools/treescapes studies I have been working on in correlation to my interest in local creature found in our woodlands.
I adopted the use of a circle one night, wanting to frame out an idea/sketch and a wine glass happened to be close by. Since then I have used it often, loving the circle aspect.
Acrylic gouache on MDF, approx 4x6". Part of an experiment: what if I painted the inside of a picture frame (ie, the inside of the backing board)? Result: it actually works really well!
I wax specific areas (paint with wax) and light from the back...in the end it will be in a glass frame to hang in a window....tben the waxed areas will glow!!!
I am an art teacher with a master’s degree—trained by brilliant professors who believed that art could do more than decorate walls. I offer safe spaces for teenagers to grow—nourishing soil where their imaginations can take root.
And yet… I am assigned to hallway duty.
This is compulsory education, after all.
So I sit—posted like a sentinel—watching young lives stream past.
“Get to class,” I say with a smile and a nudge.
The system wants attendance; I’m hungry for presence.
Armed not with a whistle or clipboard, but with a pen—
my scribble’s soft insurgency.
The hallway stretches out like a geometric hymn.
Columns and corners chant structure.
Teenagers swirl past—half-formed galaxies of limbs and laughter—
their orbits chaotic, their gravity pulling time forward.
I begin to draw.
Not their tardiness, but their motion.
A shoulder. A blur of sneakers.
A tilted head chasing freedom.
Feet flickering like seconds.
Each mark a pulse.
Each smudge a breath.
My paper becomes a seismograph of seeing—
trembling gently through the mundane.
This isn’t about making art for a frame or a feed.
It’s about refusing to leak away in the fluorescent hum of obligation.
It’s a quiet mutiny against the clock.
I do this on long car rides, too (passenger side, mind you).
Letting the lines grow wild, jagged, and unapologetic.
Not for polish—
but for presence.
This is how I remember I’m still alive.
Still growing.
Still watching.
Still choosing to see.
Because sometimes mental health looks like
a piece of scrap paper,
a moving pen,
and the simple, sacred act of
marking time with wonder.
I had some 5x7 postcards produced if you're looking for some whimsical paintings to frame or use to mail to friends. I'll throw some stickers in with each order.
This is an exterior white paint on an old tarp with a treated lumber frame painting using a photograph taken of my Dad in the Summer of 1979. Dad and I were on the porch playing our guitars while a girl I was dating snapped some photos. I get a sense of Dad's calmness whenever I look at the photo, and now, this painting.
Another attempt to work on more dynamic posing, I did a series of sketches pushing the pose into something outlandish and a tad pin-uppy for my unnamed Houdini knockoff escape artist. I used a different framework technique than usual to help me along, but I'm noticing now a few errors in the final sketch as per usual :)
An amended version now framed - A Superb Male Fairy Wren (Malurus Cyaneus) with its full plumage and is available with transparent background to suit many merch products.
The Superb Fairy-wren was one of the first Australian birds to be described. Male Superb Fairy-wrens have been labelled as 'the least faithful birds in the world'. Females may be courted by up to 13 males in half an hour.
