20Mar

Spring, sprung

I’m a fair-weather gardener. I basically ignore my back yard all through the wet, dark winter. I’m always a bit nervous when I venture out for the first time in spring, blinking like a mole and stunned by all the work there is to do. What survived the winter? What is showing new growth, and […]
  • On 2018-03-20
  • 2 Comments
  • gardening, Pacific Northwest native plants
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12Jan

What I’ve been up to while off the radar

I fell off the blogging train in late October. I was mostly working on holiday gift art, so I couldn’t share my in-progress pictures. Those projects are no longer secret, and might get a post in the future. Today I want to share a project from my day-job. The sixth-and-final van wrap for Timberland Regional […]
22Oct

Inktober 8-19

My little silhouette guy has gone from having a very difficult month to a decidedly surreal one. Yes, I saw Fantasia a few times as a kid. The giant toddler was inspired by one of the children who was listening to me play music at the pub that day. She had a great smile and […]
10Oct

Inktober: Days 2-6

Inktober is an event started by illustrator Jake Parker challenging artists to draw in ink every day for the month of October. This is my first year trying it, and it’s been fun (and a good excuse to pick up a few more pens). A few of my daily drawings have been random — I’ll post those later […]
29Sep

Sketches, week of September 18

A few little sketches this week. The first two are from memory, which is something I’d like to get better at. I saw the little girl at the Olympia Farmer’s Market while Pinniped Music was setting up for our gig there and was struck by what a perfect storybook urchin she made. She could’ve walked […]
17Sep

Virtual Studio Tour

I’ve been ill and don’t have much in the way of art to show, but I did acquire a new work table and tidy the studio up a bit, so it’s a good time for a studio tour. My studio is 180 square feet of what used to be a 230 square foot attached garage […]
01Sep

Bass at the Market

Bass player Matthew Autry (who is also the skilled fellow who built my beautiful tenor guitar) played with Mudcat down at the Olympia Farmers Market today. I caught the tale end of their set. Perfect music for a hot afternoon.
04Aug

Taking the ‘gris’ out of ‘grisaille’

The last month and a half has been busy with non-visual art things like guests and cleaning and music gigs, but I did manage to start another painting. This one is on an old panel that I painted over with a titanium white/cad yellow mixture, and like the other fiddle painting, I started with a […]
  • On 2017-08-04
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  • color palette, Fancy Art Terms, musicians, oils, painting
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03Jul

Ink Sketches: John and Maggie Carty, Fort Worden

I went to a marvelous house concert Thursday by John Carty and his daughter Maggie, and sketched while they played. John, Maggie, and John’s son James are teaching this week at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington, at Fort Worden. I’m unfortunately not participating this year, so I don’t get to […]
  • On 2017-07-03
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  • musicians, pen and ink, Port Townsend WA
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20Jun

‘Real’ colors at last

I’m always slow to abandon the freedom of under-painting and commit to working on the layers people will consciously look at, but I have to take the plunge eventually. With this painting I had some extra motivation: I was starting a second painting, and before I used the crazy yellow/purple underpainting scheme a second time, I […]
  • On 2017-06-20
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  • color palette, musicians, oils, painting
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