Blog

So here I am sitting in the hot tub with light fluffy snowflakes falling on me and my large billed hat. It’s about 9 o’clock and I am not feeling guilty about sleeping in because I have decided not to feel guilty about a lot of things. We live in the woods but there are lots of houses across the marsh. If any distant neighbors have nothing better to do than watch older people going ...

Sometimes it takes a long walk with a friend on a cold, post-Christmas Day to talk out your thoughts and perhaps come to some conclusions about where you are going or where you might want to stop going. I was trying to figure out why I have been at a bit of an impasse in terms of my art. What I mean is that for years I have gone from one subject or approach to ...

The Coffee Was Suspect Recently I had a cup of coffee at home that wasn’t the best. I thought as I was driving to Manteo, NC that I would stop and pick up a better cup of coffee. I went through a drive-through, ordered, and because I was giving myself a break from being health-conscious, ordered an additional bagel with cream cheese. I went to eat my breakfast in their parking area and found that ...

Obviously. they are talking about how they can loosen up their art technique. Of course many of them are very uptight so they could be talking about other things. In general they want to be less realistic and more interpretive, but cannot give themselves permission to break the rules of art taught by teachers in their pasts and rewarded by judges who are sometimes smitten by realistic technique. So why ask me? Some History My ...

I am at the beach thinking about landscape painting. I think the reason that I did not become a landscape painter was because I got so tired of seeing the same old same old photographic postcard copy a beautiful scenes. And that was decades ago. By now every scene has been rendered and most of them that are so technically exquisite are just boring and repetitive to me as an artist. Which leads me to ...

Hi to all my clients, collectors and friends, I have been thinking for a while about how I could host my 5th Annual Art Show and Sale at Associates in Dermatology this November. Unfortunately, COVID restrictions/rules for any event, but especially for one at a medical office are just not conducive to an enjoyable event. I am, therefore, reluctantly postponing the Art Show to a (hopefully) more relaxed time in the spring of 2021. The ...

After all these years of thinking about a comic strip or cartoon panel I am finally going to do it. In the 1980’s, my family included young teens and I have dozens of ideas I kept in a folder. But before the internet one had to sign on with a syndicate. At that time working at the Daily Press newspaper as an illustrator and raising 2 kids was all I could handle. Several years later ...

Among most couples I believe one is a dance lover and the other, well, not so much a dance lover. I would bet the former is female. My husband, Luke, could have, with no intention to do bodily harm, broken every toe on my feet in an effort to make me happy on the dance floor. So I finally had him begrudgingly sign up with me for private ballroom dance lessons. For three years we ...

I have recently been working on the fifth iteration of a painting that has never been to my liking. I would show the progression to you from the first to the last evolution, but I am afraid that I would be embarrassed if I see the first couple tries were much better than the last. It has happened before. I get into these situations because I have not really done my homework. Just because I ...

Courtroom art is not for the faint of heart. The court room artist sits cheek to cheek with other voyeurs on a hard wood bench trying to capture likenesses and actions of the participants in real life morality plays called trials. There are incredible consequences for the defendants as well as their family and friends who, while absorbed in the proceedings, cannot help but rubberneck your work. It is quiet enough to hear a pin ...