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My mother lived in a rural area on a very large plot of land and few close neighbors. You could frequently hear Eastern Towhees scratching in the line of pine trees at the edge of her property and saying "tweet". (Although the experts say their call is "to-wheee", to me it sounds more like they are succinctly pronouncing the word "tweet" - "tuh-wee-t". I've always thought that was just so cute.) After my mother passed away five years ago, we moved into town and I never saw or heard those sweet little birds anymore. A couple of days ago, being such a beautiful spring day, I had the windows wide open to let the warm breezes in and lo and behold what do I hear? "Tweet!" I immediately got up and started trying to locate where the sound was coming from, but never could. The next day I heard that same call and heard the familiar scratching along the treeline at the back of our property. There he was! At that moment, I knew I had to paint him. Welcome to our home, little Towhee.

Kate and Calla Lilies

Ah, Katherine Hepburn. Whenever I see calla lilies I think of her. I've seen many interviews with her in which she flatly denied ever saying "the calla lilies are in bloom again". Not only did she say it, but she said it in one of her most stunning performances as Terry Randall in Stage Door. She's nothing less than jaw-dropping in that role. I'm not sure why she was so adamant about having not said it. Maybe she wanted to distance herself from all the camp impersonations of her using that very same line. Whatever her reasons, they were her reasons and that makes them just fine with me. Here's to you brilliant, wonderful Kate.

A Scary Moment

Once when I was a child, my mother got a call that my oldest brother had been in an accident. The accident had happened just a couple of blocks away from our house and my mother didn't drive, so she rushed down there on foot. Of course, being as young as I was she couldn't leave me home alone, so she took me by the hand and off we went. In my memory of this, I can almost see my feet coming off the ground as we hurried to find out how my brother was. That memory was the inspiration for this mixed media design.By the way, my brother 's leg was broken and he had a few other scrapes and bruises, but no permanent damage. In fact, today he's a marathon runner. :-)

A Blue Christmas Tree

For the past few weeks I've been quite stuck in holiday mode. I can't seem to get to anything that isn't holiday themed. My favorite element of the holidays is the Christmas tree. I suppose that's why many of my designs are related to the tree.
My latest tree design started out in my head as something quite different than the end result. I had it in my mind to create a Christmas tree from leaves, so I went to my PSP program to the leaf picture tube. After choosing the one that best suited the look I wanted, because I wanted it blue instead of green, I used the colorize option to change it.
I then set about "building" a tree by copying and pasting each leaf, one by one, on a new image.




It had a certain something, but I wasn't entirely happy with it; so off to my Corel Painter 4 program it went where I applied the detailed watercolor auto-painting feature.





After creating a snowy landscape in PSP, I copied the tree and added it, but just couldn't make it work somehow. Ultimately deciding it was the lower edge that was not working, I trimmed it then copied and pasted that onto the background. I added a few little twinkly ornaments to the tree and declared it finished. It's now on several different products in my Zazzle store, including this greeting card.

Harlequin Kitty

It's true that I'm a bona fide, dyed-in-the-wool cat lover bordering on crazy cat lady. That's why when a friend suggested the notion of a cat dressed as a jester or harlequin, I couldn't resist the idea. It burned in my brain until the next morning when I broke down and started on it. I knew it was going to be a daunting design and, honestly, I wasn't sure my talents were up to the challenge. At this point I have to confess this kitty was strongly influenced by the wonderfully whimsical cats created by the great and glorious Edward Gorey.


I did a basic outline in my Corel painter program with the thick and thin pencil tool starting with the cat's face. It was love at first sight. After that my infatuation with this smiling kitty drove me on. After the basic sketch was done, I began coloring in with the the tapered gouache brush. I like this brush and use it quite a bit because I find it fills better than some of the others and is easier to control. Anyway, on I went filling in each little diamond on his costume by hand. When the painting was finished, I sent it to my PSP program for the tedious task of cleaning up the edges. I then copied the image and added it to a background I had created using some of the stock Paint Shop patterns. At the end my eyes were red and bleary and my back was aching, but I think he was worth the pain. He's now happily dancing on several products in my Zazzle store.

Thinking out loud

It's no secret to anyone who knows me how much I love my Wacom tablet. Since I got it a few months ago, I've quit using the traditional forms of media almost entirely. This brings me to a couple of questions: Is digital artwork valid as art and will it eventually replace art in conventional media? Because I create all my work digitally lately, I never have a physical finished work - nothing you can hold in your hands. Of course, I can always print it out (or have it printed out), but then is it still an original? One generally thinks of a printed image as just that - a print. Even if it's a one off, it's still a print. Although most of the work I've done lately has been more in the realm of design that's meant to be added to the products in my Zazzle store; I have done a few paintings and drawings that I think could easily stand on their own, but they only exist on my hard drive. How does that impact their relevance? Does it impact their relevance?


At this point, the number of artists that use strictly digital media is probably relatively small, but this is the digital age. I suspect more and more artists will begin turning to digital. After all, who can resist the lure of dozens of different pens, brushes, paints and most any other medium you can think of right there at your fingertips? (Not to mention any color you want without having to blend or deal with the hassle of cleaning brushes.) Will art galleries eventually be filled with artists' work who have never so much as touched a real paintbrush or pencil? Maybe. Maybe not.


All I know is that, either way, I will keep happily using my tablet and hope that my computer doesn't crash.

And people try to tell me I shouldn't take naps...

After not having slept well the night before (as usual), I was having an afternoon nap. At some point I woke up with a design in my head. I had to fight to stay asleep as this image kept popping into my head. When I did wake up finally, I couldn't immediately get to my tablet as I had a few things to do. I had to keep "repeating" this image in my head for fear it would be forgotten and lost forever.
After the various chores were finished, I sat down to create my "dream design". I made three simple leaves using the digital airbrush - one in lime green, one in Barbie pink and one in pumpkin orange. Then, with the thick and thin pencil, I added a curved line to represent the twig from which the leaves were growing and a few quick lines for veining on the leaves. When I woke up with that relentless image in my head there was something at the end of the twig, but I have no idea what it was and it seemed superfluous anyway. This was the resulting design:I added it to several items in my Zazzle store. For all but the cloth products, I turned it 90 degrees and added a tone-on-tone beige striped background.

Now I think it may be time for another nap. Ya never know. ;-)