A friend's children painted a canvas I gave them and I painted them into it. The fun messy doodle background is 90% theirs. I added a few streams to pop out some of the shapes they painted. I might do this as a series.
I first bought some cheap soft pastels back in 2018 and did a couple of sketches. I bought a nice set of Rembrandt pastels a few months later — didn't use them. I bought some pastel pads, none if which seemed right. September 2020, I bought a couple more sets of bargain pastels and tried a couple of pieces — no good, still couldn't bring myself to use them. Jess bought me pastel pencils for Christmas — I was too scared to use them. I even bought a pad of Pastelmat which is supposed to be THE paper to use for pastel paintings in January. I was too scared to use that as well!
FINALLY, after a few unsuccessful attempts at working with watercolour (brush issues), I cast aside my fear and thought I'd mess around with pastels. Some time later, and this was the result. I've finally broken through my pastel fear-barrier.
I've got to say, I love soft pastels and I'm excited about doing more pieces in this medium.
This very small sketch/doodle, enlarged, inspired a six foot tall painting. The background on the painting is incomplete. I'm back at this work in progress based on this small image from a sketchsheet. This painting will appear at my solo show in Thunder Bay in a couple years.
Playgrounds were opened in October then closed again the first weekend of December, and then re-opened yesterday! So grateful. This is one of the renovations by SF Rec and Park while they were closed: Alice Chalmers Playground. It's a pretty crazy climb inside (my five year old needed me to help him down the slide). The Q-bert type iceberg things are super cool, too.
Sorry I haven’t been around to post much. I’m always really busy during the summer months. I decided to buy a set of oil paints and experiment with them. When my set arrived, it was missing a blue paint so i had to improvise on this one. The painting is still wet so there is some glare in the image. I feel like it looks good, but I am definitely lacking the skill and technique in oil paints. That is why this painting is super simple and easy subject matter. Hopefully, I can start to get a feel for the oils :)
Finally done! I worked on this for most of the evening and well into the night yesterday. I was so excited to finish it. I did stencil in the letters, but it took so long to paint them in. I bought the board a couple days ago at Hobby Lobby and finished the sign around about 10 minutes ago. Let me know what you think in the comments. (I am aware that the girls foot isn’t hanging down. I’m kinda leaning towards leaving it the way it is.)
This is the finished drawing. It took me about 6 hours over the course of two days. I decided to just lightly shade the background so my finger prints didn’t show so much. I was afraid that going darker would make the horse blend in too much. I’m happy with how it turned out! Done in charcoal, marker, colored pencil, and pencils.
This is a concept sketch that i might use on a bigger piece, it has a bit more to the design that ive added on to the top of the sketch as i was playing around with different ideas and angles to look at things. i love playing around with different symbols and markings that are quite tribal and almost mystical giving a depiction of mother earth or something shamanic also playing around with the vines and branches in the hair was a cool concept.
Following the daily painting challenge with Lisa Congdon over at CreativeBug though I haven't quite managed to keep up daily. Still, it's wonderful picking the brush up again and splashing around with paint!
This piece continues my ongoing tool series, focusing on objects shaped by use, precision, and repetition. The speed square—an essential instrument of measurement and accuracy—is rendered with attention to wear, markings, and subtle imperfections left by time and handling.
Isolated against a minimal background, the tool becomes both subject and symbol: a quiet reflection on structure, angles, and the human need to measure and make sense of the physical world. Like the others in this series, it honors everyday labor and the overlooked beauty found in functional objects.
