Mountain Glow

My favorite piece. Oil pastel on black paper. An image of the last retreating color of day disappearing over an imaginary mountainscape. This is an imaginary landscape inspired from a sunrise, early spring. The horizon was a glowing strip of orange red and the sky was an unbelievable violet blue.

Corn Field Harvest

Inspired by a memory of a vast barley field in England. Imaginary cornfield in oil pastel on cardboard.

Wooded Meadow

Eagle Creek Park on the west side of Indianapolis.........at the precipise between summer and autumn where the green is nearly spent and the colors are rich immediately before the autumn colors are begining to slowly emerge.

Desert Night

Anther imaginary landscape. I had just purchased a lovely bunch of Schmenke pastels and had to test the legendary potency of their colors. Drawn on white paper first painted with prussian blue watercolor.

Birch Tree

A close-up study of light over the textured bark of an aged birch tree. Charcoal on smooth paper.

Grey Bat

A very small watercolor and waterproof pen illustration inspired by a photo from a zoology text. Inspired by chat with my mom about illustrating a children's book about how misunderstood bats are in the animal kingdom........I think she's on to something.

Brown Bat

Most of the creature drawings you find here were inspired by a whimsical idea for a book about a misunderstood bat. (Thanks, Mom!)

Curious Wolf

Another quick study from my sketchbook. A charcoal smear that had an interesting bit of texture began growing ears....then a tail....then fangs.....

Half-a-Camel

Another creature that emerged from the seams of my sketchbook with early beginnings in a smudge or squiggle. Watercolor and waterproof in drawing on white paper.

Cow Sketches

Cows seemed an easy study for my creature drawing exercises.........slow, sedentary and doing little more exciting than chewing cud.You can't imagine how much cows really do move around until you try to catch them standing still!! Pencil, charcoal and ink on paper.

Was an Orange Peel

I had left a piece of orange rind dry out and was amazed to see how vivid the color of the skin had become. All sorts of pastels on blue charcoal paper. My nine year old nephew asked me why I had drawn a picture of a slice of ham. Call it what you will.

Tall Elephant

Was thinking about Dali's curious elephants on stilt legs. Ink on sketchbook paper.

Green and Orange Study

Evolved from a smaller sketch of overlapping paper scraps. I have since done a few further studies in this style, to be published here soon.Oil pastel on painted paper.

Broadripple Park Soccer Field

.........without the players. An exercise in capturing color and mood as rapidly as possible. I think I did this in about two minutes. Pastel on sketch book paper.

Rapeseed Field, Norfolk, UK

The light and color in Eastern England is incredible. In late spring, the fields of rapeseed can be seen from miles away because the sprouting plants are an incredible shade of vivid, nearly florescent yellow-green. I revisited the colors here with as much truth to the actual landscape colors as possible.

Near Harvest

Captured around the same time as "Wooded Meadow." Same medium. Near dusk. A wheat field approaching harvest time in western Indiana. Rembrandt pastel on white paper.

Autumn, White River, Broadripple

The hole is meant to be there! Low grade pastels on tracing paper. The paper is actually the surface of a disposable palet that I never used for its original purpose. Works wonderfully with pastels.

Sunset, Broadripple Park

This was a tricky one. Capturing the light of the sun as it fell rapidly through the lowest points of its path through the sky was a wonderful challenge. I like this one for the stained glass effect. Oil pastel on sable brown paper.

Pear Sketch

Three pears, earth tone pastel on newsprint.

Mussel Shell

Oil pastel on white paper. I wanted to explore the subtle beauty of a small, common shell.

River Stones

This is a tiny study of coin-sized riverstones on wood. Oil pastel on tobacco paper.

Space Flowers - Experimental

Completely out of character! Fine-tipped ink pen on white paper. I wanted to play with the idea of a pixilated image. Each line was a series of ovals, each oval filled in or left open in order to indicate weight of line and shadow. I really want to explore this more someday.....

Surprise!

Another quick ink on white paper study.

Autumn Colors

A selection of Indiana fall foliage captured at peak color. I arranged them on the scanner bed and hit "Go." Only a very slight contrast adjustment to the resulting image.