Cedar & Sand  

Painted in the parking lot looking south at the Apache Wash Loop Trailhead, with a scrawny coyote trotting past on a spring afternoon, (I didn’t catch him, so you will have to imagine him) this acrylic on canvas painting has it’s own oddly pleasing mix of parched  sand and a purple atmosphere, and is why I love the Sonoran Desert.  How these tough little cedar trees manage to survive under an unforgiving sun feels joyful and resilient without any of the green of a temperate spring.  This one, this green, is on it’s way from gray to blue and green and happy to have gotten this far. Instead of looking for the most majestic saguaro in sight, I chose a modest view of desert scrub trees and shrubs, applied just the colors I saw, and stepping away was delighted with the cream-colored dried grasses, distant blue mountains, clear cerulean sky, parchment landscape with dried umber bits of deadwood, and those darkest shadows.  If it can be seen even as an abstraction of these colors, and of life and death, of harsh heat and secrets of survival, all the better. Surely there are artists who choose to paint the grandest of canyons and mountains, and I’m not that, and I admit I’m drawn to closer, less sweeping, views of astonishing beauty before I even leave the parking lot for a trail. This is how I choose to look at the natural world around me, I’m not sure I know why, but it’s surprisingly fulfilling.  Edgar Payne wrote in his Composition of Outdoor Painting that the artist’s most important job is thinking. I agree, and agree, and agree.  7” x  5”

Still Life, Set Table in winter light, upper midwest suburbia, USA.  Daylight has faded into pink and gray, the table is set but the dining room is still darkening, waiting for the family to gather, the warm oven to open up and spread the smells of a cozy hearty winter meal.  There is something cold but hopeful about the pregnant table overlooking the evening snowy yard outside.  I'm glad there are candles to capture the children's best manners. Does this piece conjure memories for you?  Does it have so many stories to reveal?  Acrylic on paper. 18" x 24" Where will it go? 

Because I saw these wildly magenta wild roses at Doheny Beach State Park in Dana Point, California, and didn’t get to paint them the first time I was there, and even though the choice of these meant I was missing so many other blooms, including honeysuckle, the sunburst blooms of ice plants ,and the ocean itself,  I took my palette and this tiny canvas board into the clump, found this little petal folded onto itself, and found a way to keep my feet away from the ants to paint it nearly life-sized on a canvas board only 1.5” x 2”. A magenta pink five-petaled single rose, with eyes of dark red, yellow fringed centers, above dense green almond-shaped leaves, the blooms are so fragile, so fine, so few per bush where I found them under trees with not quite enough light, barely looking like they would last a day in the sun, and hardly able to hold up their heads in the wind, how are these little feral warrior blooms not worth a portrait?  Among my smallest works yet, is a painting any less a work of art because it is small?  Like the blooms themselves, to fully appreciate them, you must come close. I’ve read these wild roses range from brightest magenta like these to pink and nearly white,  When I find them, I’ll paint them too.

Just a bowl of pecans and an old school nutcracker.  A still life that evokes some kitchen memories, maybe a pie, maybe just shelling pecans by an autumn fire in the fireplace?  When did you last shell a bowl of pecans?  It's the new healthy, isn't it?  Omega 3's and all?  The shapes in this painting are sorta modern,but classic, reminds me of a gibbous moon and that fat V of the tool for contrast?  The original was painted in acrylics on board, and is in a private collection.  I love food still life and those are commissions I love too.  Let's talk?  Walnuts?  

Lo Lo Mai Springs is a privately owned campground and day use facility on a beautiful mile of Oak Creek, near Sedona, Arizona.  While Oak Creek itself is serene and picturesque for a long way, the spring fed pond is really a special treat, in a glade of towering trees, unusually large old cottonwoods and sycamores, the spring fed pond attracts birds, butterflies and must have supplied early inhabitants of the area with both ample clean water and wildlife, a treasure in a desert landscape. It can be crowded, but the bench swings and benches that surround the well shaded spring pond invite still observation.  It's a place I hope to paint again and again.  The "resort" itself can be crowded with family and feral-leaning children, but it's natural beauty is still irresistible.  I'm not sure what the yellow overgrowth on the pond is, but it was shining yellow in the sunlit center of the pond from where I painted.  Algae?  I hope I captured the depth of the deep deep black-green water and shaded foliage dotted with slivers of sun accenting the verdure.  Acrylics on Canvas Board.

Yes, I baked them, and yes, I painted them, because look at those colors and those textures, they made me want to keep looking and I think my mouth waters for the flavors this painting evokes.  I love the contrast of the blue window reflections on the shiny table, against the orange, brown pecans and gold meringue.  The original is in a private collection, but this makes a wonderful Fine Art Print, pastel-like on Watercolor Paper, even in a Petite Print Version, or on a tote for those fall kitchen farmer's market shopping trips in anticipation of family time.