Monarch

Monarch - 8 x 10

Watercolor & Ink

Heron Overhead

An 11 x 14 watercolor

Dramatic Max

This is an original 11 x 14 watercolor of my friend's precious Max.

Waterlily & Pine Straw

8 x 20 watercolor from a photo I took in Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge on Mobile Bay.

Three French Hens

11 x 14 Watercolor on Paper

This is painted from photo I took while in Hambye, Normandy. We stayed at a fantastic bed & breakfast owned by a British couple. They had chickens, miniature horses, ducks and dogs.

She Makes A Wake

11 x 14 Watercolor on Arches 300

This was painted for a show to benefit a dog rescue group. It will hang in the Dog Days of Summer show in July at the Mobile Arts Council gallery.

It was painted from a photo of my beautiful chocolate lab, Mollie Ann.

At the Water's Edge

14 x 20 Watercolor on CP300

Heron #2

16 x 20 on Arches 300 CP

I painted this great blue heron as a commission a friend. She was specific about it being beachy and blue and beige. She seems happy with it. She said it was for her husband's wall but changed her mind and hanged it in her own space. How's that for fickle? I'm pleased she likes it that much.

Airplane Girl in Piney Creek

11 x 14 Watercolor on Arches 300 CP

I painted this from a photo I made on a hike to Fall Creek Falls, Tennessee.

Walter, the dogs and me hiked down Piney Creek Gorge, across a dinky suspension bridge and down to the cool cavernous creek bed. Behind us came a small busload of Christian school teens.

Thankfully, none were afeared of the dogs and we were free to let them loose to play in the creek.

Long Cool Egret

8 x 20 Watercolor on Arches CP 300

I took this from a photo I took on one of my many birding trips to Dauphin Island. 

This guy was by the airport along with many of his allies. I have him framed in a rustic pale gray frame with a white mat and just a sliver of cerulean blue around. It looks great. I think he is one of my favorites at the moment.

He was juried into another show at the Mobile Museum of Art, "Celebrating Our Maritime Heritage: A Coastal Holiday", December 2011. It was a very small group show and I was glad to be a part of it. 

Owlets in the Oak Tree

11 x 14 Graphite Drawing on Vellum

These owls were hatched in an ancient oak in the middle of a children's park in the center of Daphne, Alabama. 

They had been featured in the Mobile Press Register for several weeks, and as a birder I was desperate to get down there and photograph them so that I could paint them. 

I talked Walter into going down there after work one day. And although I asked Walter to bring his longest lens he didn't. I don't think he fathomed the distance from ground to branch. Fortunately, his normal lens was sufficient, but in the end I felt a graphite drawing fit the subject and composition better.

We tried to hang around long enough to see the mom up close, but she kept her distance in the height of nearby trees. We could hear her swoop and whoosh but by the time we looked up she had secreted herself in the shadows.

Frances the Wonderdog

 

11 x 14 Watercolor on Arches 300 CP

Can I Come In?

11 x 14 Watercolor on Arches 300 CP

Cardinal

11 x 14 Watercolor on Arches 300 CP

I painted this cardinal from two different photos. The goal was to work on making backgrounds I like. I'm not sure I succeeded in that regard. I like the picture overall. I like the bird especially and the bench very much too, but what my mind envisioned for the background and what it morphed into aren't really the same. Still a handsome picture, I would say.

Calves on Hwy 30

 

 8 x 20 Watercolor on Arches 300 CP

Green Sea Turtle

 

8 x10 Colored Pencil on Acid Free Museum Board

Gorilla at Knoxville Zoo

 

8 x 10 Colored Pencil on Acid Free Museum Board 

 This is one of my first colored pencil attempts. Colored pencils are pretty cool but they are a lot more physical work then I imagined. All that covering and burnishing can where you hands out if you're unaccustomed to it.

Zebra Pen & Ink

 

5 x 7 Pen and Ink and Color Wash

Crow Pen & Ink

 

5 x7 Pen and Ink and Color Wash

Mule in Pen & Ink

 

8 x 10 Pen & Ink