I just finished my first big commission, and as you can see, she’s not a pigeon. Adorable and very round, Mary Jane is a fox squirrel currently in the care of Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue. When Mary Jane’s rehabber, Janet, asked if I could make a portrait of a beloved rescue squirrel, I was honored....Continue Reading
Alfred is an eight-year-old king pigeon hen—yes, Alfred is very much a girl—who I long admired from afar. She came to Palomacy with two other baby pigeons, all of them found hiding under a bush in a park. For several years, Alfred and her former husbird, Pirate, were a bit Instagram-famous. I was not the...Continue Reading
It’s been a couple of months since I checked in here. The pace of my artmaking has slowed way down as I work on building my drawing skills. I like how nature journaling teacher John Muir Laws refers to intensive drawing practice as pencil miles. Recently, my pencils (and crayons) have visited everything from wonky...Continue Reading
I’ve decided not to have a newsletter. Having a blog plus a newsletter is too many things in a world of too many things. A business person would probably tell me to keep the newsletter and ditch the blog because newsletters give you metrics. But I love blogs. I started blogging in 2007; it’s a...Continue Reading
The Fairfax Art Walk was Friday night. I had no idea what to expect and was nervous while setting up my table in front of SOON, but then so many people showed up that there was no time for nerves. The town became a big, happy party, and I talked to people for four hours...Continue Reading
Yesterday, I had a donut-induced meltdown — from drawing them, not eating them. These were the directions for our in-class drawing exercises: Simplify the background, foreground, and subject to three values: dark, middle, and light. Use the white of the paper for the light value, a 2H pencil for the mid-tone, and a 6B pencil...Continue Reading
Some of the hardest but most magical moments in an art practice arise after you’ve done something you don’t like. I’ve learned that I might learn something if I refrain from immediately obliterating what I think is ugly or wrong. And the process might lead me somewhere much better than the place I imagined I...Continue Reading
When I stopped painting last night, something was bothering me, but I couldn’t say precisely what it was. I had been working on a mixed-media portrait of rescued pigeon Lucito in his wedding bow tie. The bow tie was a problem. It looked patchy and incomplete, and I felt frozen. A self-doubting voice was telling...Continue Reading
