Yellow Bird On the Prowl

I made a mindless sketch long ago in a sketchbook. I scanned it for later fun. Finally, I added some color and texture over the last couple of days. And today, I put it in a post for you, the viewer, to enjoy. I hope you do!

Turkey Trot

Looking through old pictures, I found a mixed media turkey. Since we are still eating left-overs from this year's Thanksgiving I thought I would post this one. This started as a drawing that I silk screened with black acrylic ink. After it was dry, I added watercolor. Note the dance steps at the bottom.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Rain Barrel

Summer time, collecting the rain. Seems like a great idea! The rain runs off the rooftop, collecting in the barrel. Ready for distribution on the vegetable garden.

This is another painting done on the mystery paper I mentioned in previous posts.

Grasshopper

Summer is coming, and grasshoppers will soon be here.
When I was a young lad, our family had a cat who went by the name of Tiger George.
Tiger loved to stalk grasshoppers. And sometimes he would catch them...and eat them. I preferred peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

From the Archives

Long, long ago I started a teaching gig at the Columbia Art Center in Columbia, Maryland. I was invited to teach a drawing class. After the agreement was reached, I got a call from the Center. I was told that they had a silk screen class ready to begin, with students, but no teacher. Would I like to do it?

How could I say no? After all, I hired screen printers for some of my graphic design projects, so I knew in general what it was. However, I had never actually done screen printing myself. I told the Art Center of my (lack of) experience. But they were convinced I could do it...

And so my teaching career began.

The classes went very well, at least for me. I learned a lot and had a great time, and I was able to produce some prints that I still like very much.

This sample was a stencil cut print. After printing several and letting them dry, I then added watercolor.

I only taught the silk screen class for a year or so, but I have been teaching painting classes ever since.

Old Home Place

Rummaging around old drawings and paintings, I found this watercolor sketch of our former house. We raised a couple of amazing ladies and made a lot of memories, then we cleared out.

Call the Sheriff!

A drawing scanned from a sketchbook, colored in Adobe Illustrator. It reminds me that in junior high school I drew a comic strip called “The Sheriff of Dirt Gulch,” or something like that. Fortunately none of the evidence survives. (But I still like the name.)

Art of the Ukulele

Yes, I play a ukulele. Several of them. Along with a lot of other stringed instruments: guitar, mandolin, I even have a banjo!

Like watercolor painting, the ukulele is wonderfully portable. It is small enough to fit in the overhead container on an airplane. It looks harmless, but it is a great little tool to practice on, whether you are learning classical fingerings or blues riffs. I highly recommend getting one. (I actually have three.)

Below is a small drawing from one of my sketchbooks. I put it through my Adobe Illustrator processes: adding text, color and texture. I think it looks like me, except with even less hair.

Maybe I should start a band!

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is cold outside.

And it will be colder tomorrow!

Christmas Recovery

The Bridge Over the Gunpowder

Snow today. It took about 2 1/2 hours to get home from work. It was dark when I got home, so I can't tell if the snow looks nice. Maybe on a hot day I'll post a painting of a snow scene. But right now I would rather have warm weather.

This painting is another of the series I did on the odd paper I mentioned previously. The bridge can be found where Harford road crosses the Gunpowder river in Baltimore county.

It was warm when I was there.

Same Paper, New Painting, Autumn Colors

Another painting from northern Pennsylvania. Using another sheet of the same paper mentioned previously. Standing on the hill behind Scott and Cheryl's house, you can see for miles. Looking down on the neighbor's farm. A buzzard's-eye view.

Another Painting, On Odd, Old Paper

Back in December I mentioned finding an old pad of paper. I was able to successfully fill each page with a painting. But I forgot to tell you about it! My apologies.

This one is a scene from northern Pennsylvania, a common source for some of my favorite things to paint. I like how the paint ran down the page and mingled with other colors.

I'll be sure to add the others shortly.

Pencils First

Long before I started painting, I drew and drew and drew a lot. And after I started painting, I got into the habit of drawing first, to work out quickly what I wanted to paint. I have long admired the drawings of Ted Kautzky and Paul Calle. They both had a great technique of cross-hatching pencil strokes. More like ink drawings than softly blended pencil. It has been a long time since I did final work with just graphite. So I assigned myself a project to do a series. I think they turned out well. So I made a web page so you can see them! (This also gave me a chance to keep my front-end web skills sharp.)

I hope you like them!

Still here! Painting Fences.

Time slips away. I have been working, really. I've been doing a lot of studying, coding, and writing this year. And so I have neglected showing new pictures.

In my flat files I found a really old pad of watercolor paper. I inherited it from an old friend. It has an odd, artificial, cold-press pattern. The actual surface is very hard, almost like bristol. The pad had eight sheets in it. Instead of letting it collect even more dust, I decided to make a painting on each sheet. Despite the odd texture, it worked pretty well!

Interesting Jobs That I Don't Think Are Real

As far as I know, no one gets paid to mine apples for gold, silver, or any other precious metals or stones. Maybe he is looking for worms. Or seeds... Yes, seeds, that makes sense.

Making a lot of pictures, then showing them to you!

I mentioned recently my personal project of using up extra paint and paper. The first few were made with pink and black paint. I ran out of pink, but wanted to keep sketching and painting. And I wanted to finish my pad of paper, so I made a lot more.

Here is a page I put together to show the results of my labor. It was fun to do them. I hope you like looking at them!

Scraps of Paper, Extra Paint

Last year I did a painting for my granddaughter's room. I ended up with a lot of unused pink paint. So I found an old, unused sketch book and did some quick, silly pictures. (I still had my granddaughter in mind.)

Soon I was out of paint, but I still had many pages left in the sketchbook. I gave myself a new assignment. Fill all the pages of the sketchbook with quick illustrations of whatever was in my head.

Using old acrylic paint collected through the years, I set out a limited number of odd colors and worked until the color on the palette was gone. It took a few sessions, but soon the pages were filled.

Here are a couple more from the first batch, using pink and black paint. You can see a lot of them on this page.

Almost Christmas

Supply truck

It's good to take pride in your work.