The first art book I ever bought was Betty Edward’s Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The book’s premise was that any beginner could learn to draw, and I was a beginner. Although I had zero formal training as an artist, I had a very big urge to create something. I had studied creative writing and had a…
During this time of quarantine, we are most lucky as artists to be able to continue the work of making. It may be that if we are forced to stay with our work, and are less distracted by things beckoning us from the outside world, we might find that we can go deeper than we expected.This may take a variety…
Since I began teaching abstract painting and collage a few years ago (through a joint appointment with the Durham Arts Council and OLLI program at Duke) I have looked for ways to both stretch myself and give my students some new ways of starting their paintings. Last year, dealing with the trauma of a flooded and destroyed art studio, I…
One of the ways that I like to paint is to simply allow my hand to create colorful shapes in a seemingly random pattern, until a coherent painting forms and begins to look ‘finished’. This can be done using any 2D or 3D medium. I often listen to music that matches whatever mood I’m in when I start to paint…
The magic of seeing San Miguel for the first time is an experience I will never forget. In 2010, my art teacher Jane Filer and her husband John and my sister flew to Leon and from there took the shuttle to San Miguel. We rented a cheap but beautiful home in the area of San Antonio and wandered the city…
In May, I attended a weekend retreat sponsored by Pine Island Audubon Sanctuary to sketch and paint native plants of the Outer Banks of NC. I was one of a small group of eighteen participants along with 3 experts: a naturalist, a botanist, and a botanical illustrator. We stayed in an historic hunting lodge built in 1913 that was gracious…
In the mountains of Millboro Springs, Virginia is an artists' and writers' resort area that has been a creative refuge for many years. Originally built in 1783 as a stagecoach stop, Camp Nimrod/Nimrod Hall has been a summer resort for people from all over the world since the 1930's. There are seven buildings consisting of the main house that acts as…
On Friday, April 14, four OCAG artists met at Blackwood Farm Park (off Highway 86) for a plein air painting session. The farmhouse, out buildings, and large barn are in a state of arrested decay, but it is surrounded by 152 acres of picturesque rolling farmland punctuated by magnificent trees. This is indeed a landscape artist's paradise. To describe this adventure,…
Over the years, I have enjoyed documenting experiences by painting my own renditions of various local activities. Recently viewed at a HARC Cooperative Pop-Up show on Franklin Street, the painting -- Citizens -- is the last in a series of nine paintings of various Moral Mondays protests in the spring of 2013 in Raleigh. The paintings were based on photographs by my…
For the past few years, I have been making collaborative mixed media paintings with another artist, Luna Lee Ray. Our process involves trading pieces back and forth continuously until we feel that the image is complete. The collaborative process is always an exciting one, especially when the layers of a piece begin to build and bring a piece to life!…