The Village

The outline to this painting came from Terry Madden's Watercolor Workshop 1100 series Volume 1... but instead of following instructions given in the book, I decided to pretty much do my own thing... playing with colors.  My original version of this painting hangs in my living room.

13 x 9.5 inches watercolor on Blick Studio Fabriano watercolor paper.

The River

Once again, the trees here look nothing like the photo reference used to create them.  This one was fun, though I probably should have tried putting a boat on the water.

Abandoned

I love old barns.  I used a photo reference for the basic shape of the barn, but I didn't try to replicate much other detail in that photo... Watercolor again...

Beach Scene

The use of photos to get shapes right is one thing, making a direct copy is another. My chair in this painting doesn't look much like the chair in the photo I used as a reference... but it does look like a chair.

The Path

I've now been working with watercolors for about three months... these next pictures are my attempts at getting something artistic onto the paper... 

Medieval Fantasy

My Latest Sketch.  The frame and mat seen here were digitally created.  The original hung in my livingroom for awhile, but has been given to my mother-in-law, and now hangs in her livingroom. I worked on this sketch for quite awhile during March and April.  Click picture for larger view.

Original Art

Like many others, my first exposure to art was during elementary school. While I was granted opportunities to experiment with different media during school hours, there was little or no encouragement at home and fewer opportunities at school as the years passed.

For a very long time, I've wanted to draw, but did nothing much about it. Four years ago, I found what is - to me - a marvelous website, Drawspace.com now full of over 200 different lessons on drawing and painting. The artist who created the site, Brenda Hoddinott, speaks to me through her art... so I began following some of her lessons and purchased her book, Drawing for Dummies in which the author/artist does not assume the reader has any previous knowledge of drawing... which is exactly what I needed.

All too often, my efforts prove unworthy of showing, but over the last several years, I have drawn and/or painted a few pieces that will be posted here. Comments are active and constructive criticism appreciated.

This is the sole picture I don't actually deem worthy of being here, but it's something to compare with my more current pieces to help see my progress.

Original sketch dated 11/04/2007, this is a blend of a Drawspace lesson on atmospheric perspective and some ideas (loosely) taken from a couple of photos of Mount Lassen, located in northern California; one taken from Kings Creek meadow, and the second one taken from the vicinity of Hat Creek. Unfortunately, my second source photo is no longer online.

I used a standard 2B pencil for the line drawing, several colors of Derwent Graphitint pencils for most of the shading, and a blue Faber Castell watercolor pencil for the stream. The paper is from the little sketch pad Derwent included with their pencil set, which is 80lb paper suitable for multiple media. Because the Derwent and Faber Castell pencils are water soluble, I could do a very similar drawing with the same pencils and get a very different look if I used them wet instead of dry, as you see here.

As you can tell, my result doesn't much resemble any of the source materials or anything remotely real either. I jokingly say it's nowhere on earth... but I'd really like to be able to be more realistic with my drawing.