Medium: Collage               Size: 4x6 (each)

Recently viewed a Henri Matisse collage at the Carnegie Museum of Art.  The piece titled The Thousand and One Nights" and is on display until July 15th, 2012.  Its a very large piece and inspired me to start making small collage pieces.

The two pieces here, both untitled were created with the thought of the Matisse project.  His piece worked with a lot of hearts so I included those in these two pieces as well.  According to the information card supplied by the museum, the Matisse artwork also shows the passage of time from day to night (white lamp on left (day) to black lamp towards right (night)).  I added a sun and moon to one of the pieces to show the time change as well, but I think mines a little more obvious.  The piece on the right is showing the ebb and flow of love and the ups and downs found in relationships, but for every down there is an up.

Medium: Oil Paints     "Twin Lakes Upper Lake" - 4x6

This was one of the first paintings that I created post-school.  I discovered a local painter, Ron Donoughe, who paints plein air.  I went to a local park with a small easel and came away with this piece.

It was the first piece I had make that I was happy with.  Most of the previous attempts at painting plein air were not very successful, but I still find it quite fun. I continue working a lot out near my parents house in the country, but want to switch to more urban areas.

Medium:Oil Paints    Sunflowers - 12x16

I did this piece a couple months back during an oil painting class at the Carnegie Museum of Art.  They subject was a group of long stemmed sunflowers in a large glass vase.  I decided to focus more on the flowers and the angles that they hung out of the vase.

The background was painting with a black gesso prior to the painting of the actual flowers.

Wow, it's been so long since I last posted. Been busy with work, substitute teaching, job hunting and life. Anyhow, here's a piece that I did about 2 weeks ago. I've been wanting to learn how to watercolor better and I've been trying to get a class, but so far haven't had any luck...they always get cancelled. So I suppose I'll just start to teach myself.

This image is titled "From the back door" and is a 4x6 watercolor painting on 140 lb. paper.

The trees in the background certinaly seem to need some help and I have to make sure I put down the lightest colors first...definitely more to learn.

Ceramic Slab Built Sculpture

This piece is a slab built clay piece. It was created while in school and based off of some doodles that I had done in a sketch book. I found that I tend to repeat the wave shape that is shown on the right hand side of the piece in the picture. I enjoy the way that it curls over on itself and I was looking for some kind of idea to use in a ceramics piece.

I found the wave form to create a nice smooth flow for the piece and helps to move the viewers eye down through the piece and then wraps the viewer back towards the top.

Medium: Clay
Size: 4"(h) x 3"(w) x 11"(l)

"Essence of an Otter" - Sculpture

This is a sculptural piece that I did while I was in school. The lessons main focus was to teach us how to use welding to create pieces of artwork. I had discovered Deborah Butterfields "horses" while browsing through a sculptural magazine at the school and wanted to create something that was similar in fashion. This sculpture used random found metal pieces from a local junk yard and were welded together to create the form and movement of a river otter.

Medium: Welded Metal
Size: 21"(h) x 15"(w) x 24"(l)

Ralph McDonald Character Model Sheet

This is a character model sheet for Ralph McDonald, a farmer character created for an animated short that I created. This model sheet shows an animator or other artist how the character will look from different angles when they are drawing them. This model sheet also includes a final color model as well as small head models.

Medium: Blue Col-Erase Pencils and .05 Black Micron Marker
Size: 10.5 x 12.5 Animation Paper