Welcome visitor

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.

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. ;-)

Final result

The finished product - one of them at least. I made several products with this same image, each with a different quote. (This just happens to be one of my favorites.)

Sometimes it ain't easy

Been struggling all night with an image and just can't make it happen. These are what I've come up with so far. Not thrilled with either. It may not be meant to be. Sigh.