What's black and white and red all over?

This piece reminds me of that joke I used to tell. 

"What's black and white and red all over?"

"A newspaper!" You know...red...read.

"What's black and white and red all over?"

Original available here for $25.

4"x4" on canvas

Prints available on request.

(Printed image may be slightly cropped for printing purposes.) 

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

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Flowers Bring Color to our World

Flowers bring color to our world...I'm thankful for flowers.

Original available here for $25.

4"x4" on canvas, edges painted black 

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

Solitude

 I'm with the best company when I'm alone.

"Solitude"

 4"x4" canvas

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment.

She cried tears for the future and tears for the past.

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.”
- Washington Irving

"She cried tears for the future and tears for the past."

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment.

Sometimes Love is Messy

Sometimes love is messy. 

That's part of its charm, right?

I adore using small canvases as my pallets when I paint. They get all lumpy, bumpy, fabulous and then I paint something on top of all that "mess". With this canvas the word "love" was there for quite a while. I'd used my pallet to make sure my India ink was flowing from my brush and had written with it. So when I decided to turn the pallet into a painting, the word "love" and all that "messiness" spoke to me.

"Sometimes Love is Messy"

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment.

And through it all we can keep smiling...

...because there's power in optimism.

And I continue to be inspired by one of my student's drawings. :-)

Also, I love using small canvases as paint pallets and then painting on top of what becomes a very colorful, highly textured surface. 

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in a print of this piece.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.
I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment.

Melodic Bloom

This is the other little mixed media piece I did while watching "Jessica Jones". I like to use small canvases as my palettes. It's super fun to use them as backgrounds to new art pieces.

"Melodic Bloom"

Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.
Please click the links below to share my blog.
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Flowers are my Music

I haven't binge watched anything since "Orange is the New Black" came out. Over the weekend Dave and I decided to watch "Jessica Jones"... the entire season in two sittings! Even though I was sick, it was still too hard for me to "just sit" and watch, so I created a couple of small collage pieces on canvas as the action played out. I'll post the other one soon.

"Flowers are my Music"

The edges of the canvas are painted, too!

Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.
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"We are More Alike than Different" Part 3

The past month has been filled with large and small gatherings of people I love and adore, wonderful friends and family of all ethnicities, religions, sexual orientation, gender, age. And absolutely none of that is a barrier in any way, shape, or form for how much love I have for them. We are so very much more alike than we are different.  All of us.


I finished this painting...when I gaze at it I'm filled with sadness, love, and hope.

"We are More Alike than Different"

I gave her cheeks and lips color and
a light reflection in her eyes. 

I used ink to line her eyes and eyebrows
and her pupils. Her sadness and despair
are so clearly worn on her face.

I used graphite to fill in her head covering
to make sure that I definitely wanted to
do that rather than hair. I did.

I painted a layer of brown
on the head covering.

I painted a layer of yellow
on the head covering.

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Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

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"We are More Alike than Different" Part 2

No worries, no spoiler alerts needed.

Yes, I saw the new Star Wars movie this morning with my little guy and two of his buds (They've been best friends for over 12 year now...I love that!). I was doing fine through all the previews and then the "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away..." part started scrolling. Well, that was just the first time I teared up. I have so many fond memories of Star Wars from my childhood and I simply cannot help being a mush. Waiting in long lines to see the movies, mad dashes to purchase newly released action figures, recreating scenes from the movies and making up new ones of our own. I think I'll have to pull the box of action figures out of the closet and give them all a big hug today. Even Darth Vader. After all, he likely needs the biggest hug of all.


I also continued working on this painting. I love when a painting takes over and tells me what direction it wants to take.

I highlighted her forehead, nose, and chin.
I also whitened her eyes outside of her irises.

I painted another layer of a darker shade.

I painted the background to define her hair...
which made me quite certain that my painting
wants it to be a head covering rather than hair.

I painted an even darker layer.

And gave her eyes some color.

Click here to view my gallery.

Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

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I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment

"We are More Alike than Different" Part 1

As I was walking this morning I thought to myself, "The streets are looking pretty dingy, it's time for the street sweeper to show up." Two hours later, there it was!

I need to come up with something really awesome for my newfound magical powers.


I started a new painting as part of the class I've been taking. I'm continuing to work on lovely darker skin tones. My goal is to portray someone who is perhaps Asian or Middle Eastern.

I sketched the face.

I erased the extra pencil marks
and gave her hair...or perhaps
a head covering. I'll decide later.

I painted the first layer of color on her face.

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Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

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"Beauty" Part 3

Sometimes my real world fuses with my dream world.

Case in point...last night I had a dream that I was in a hotel and the folks staying in the room next to us were very upset because we were making so, so much noise. And for some reason the way their irritation was conveyed is that there were holes in the walls and they'd stick their fingers through them and waggle admonishments our way. Well, I woke up to discover that Dave, our little guy, and two of his friends were watching a movie at super loud volume. I got up, skipped admonishing them, closed our bedroom door, and went right back to sleep. Weirdness....


I finished working on this little painting.

"Beauty"

I gave her a neck and shoulder, and worked
on some details of her face.

I painted her hair and gave her some highlights.

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Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

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"Beauty" Part 2

I recently had a childhood memory revisit the front of my consciousness. One of my family members, who shall remain unnamed, told me, "I'm going to call the police on you."

Well, when I was a kid, perhaps nine or ten years old, I was pulling the cute little twins who lived down the street around in a wagon. I was going up a hill, began turning around to go back down, and the wagon tipped over and spilled the kiddos out. "I'm going to call the police on you!" yelled one of them.

Did I laugh it off? Nope. I ran home, got in our dirty clothes hamper in the hallway, closed the door, and stayed there for many hours. I was not willing to go to jail for my crime.

Luckily I'm getting better about reacting to these words. This time I only briefly considered crawling into our laundry hamper.


I continued working on this painting.

I began adding some darker color to her face.

I gave her brown eyes and com color
on her lips and cheeks.

I added highlights to her eyes, nose, and mouth.

Click here to view my gallery.

Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

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"Beauty" Part 1

I've got a big forehead...a fivehead is much more accurate. I was at a wonderful party last night and was caught on film a few times. I think I looked fine, don't get me wrong, but I was reminded of the acreage between my eyebrows and my hairline. So this morning, against my better judgment and all of the failures in my past, I trimmed my hair to give myself bangs. Gotta cover up all that area somehow, right? And for the first time ever I think I actually did a pretty good job. Time will tell. And if it turns out buggy, my lovely hair stylist is used to doing repair work on my botched efforts.


I started a new painting as part of a class I'm taking. Just like my previous few blogs, I'm working on skin tones. This will be a woman with dark skin. I'm super excited as I think that's the most lovely skin there is.

I sketched the face.

I erased most of the extra pencil marks.

I started with a yellowish layer and
then some highlights on top of that.

I went over the darker, more shadowed
parts with another layer. There are
many, many layers to come.

Click here to view my gallery.

Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment