The cockatoo is coming along...

I've finished the cockatoo and started on the background. I'm really happy with this piece so far!

Untitled (so far) 6" x 6" Prismacolor Colored Pencil on Paper

I'm not sure how accurately the color and lightness/contrast is showing up, since I'm using someone else's computer. Hopefully the image looks alright and isn't too off.

I've been having a good time here in England, going on lots of walks around town and into the surrounding countryside. Today we got up early and went on a morning walk through some woods and saw some deer, which was a nice surprise! As much as I'm enjoying the beautiful Sussex scenery, I will be glad to get to France next week and get started on painting again. I miss painting, have I mentioned that yet? Drawing is fun, but it is much more time-consuming than painting, and it is a much more cerebral activity. I've been working on really tight photorealism with these colored pencils, so I'm looking forward to letting loose with some abstract paintings in France, and maybe trying my hand at some looser still lifes.

Evolution of a Frog Drawing, and Cockatoo Update

Here is how the frog drawing evolved, in one convenient glance...

Here is an update of the cockatoo drawing. I've finished the beak and a bit more of the feathers. The versatility of colored pencils is amazing - they can capture both the softness of feathers, and the hardness of a beak. Through layering I was able to create a well-worn wabi-sabi texture on the beak, which is one of my favorite aspects of this drawing so far, as it lends a sense of depth and solidity to this light and feathery creature.

Finished Froggie

I finished the froggie drawing a few days ago:

Untitled (for now) 4" x 6" Prismacolor Colored Pencil on Paper

Quite a cosmic wanderer! Once I take a good scan of it, I can offer it for sale. My scanner is packed away right now and ready to go to France, so it'll be a few weeks before it gets scanned. That'll give me plenty of time to come up with a title and pin down some words about the piece.

I started a new drawing of a sulphur-crested cockatoo:

Another cosmos-oriented piece, but since I already used a nebula-like form in the frog drawing, I'll have to come up with something slightly different for the background of this bird piece. I was thinking of something involving decorative clouds done in a Tibetan style.

Brighton

I spent a couple of days in Brighton, where I lived last year. It's a nice seaside town that's big, but not too big. It's a very hip, artsy place with a thriving alternative scene.

Here's the view exiting Brighton Station. It's quite a steep hill but the camera seems to flatten the incline! I'm acutely aware of the steepness of the hill, because I used to live up that center road had to walk up it many times, often carrying heavy bags.

After moving out of the flat near the station, I lived in a house near Preston Park - a much more residential area. The houses are quite gorgeous in this area:

Here are some pictures of the trendy North Lanes, where there are a lot of nice little cafes and shops:

One of my favorite "quiet" spots in the middle of Brighton, behind the Royal Pavilion. I like the gnarled branches of this tree that twist at the top:

And that concludes my mini photo tour of Brighton!

Now the background...

I finished the froggie and started working on the background:

Froggie Update

I've found some time in the past two days to work on the froggie drawing. Yesterday I started filling in the dark area underneath the chin:

Today I finished more of the shading:

One reason I really enjoy working in colored pencils is the ease and facility of subtly blending colors. Being able to easily blend a multitude of colors to form a shadow creates a fascinating depth and richness in the drawing, causing the figure to really "pop" off the paper.

Jet-lagged but Happy

It's Sunday night as I type this. I arrived in London yesterday morning after an 8 hour plane ride from Tampa. I'm getting used to these long plane rides; this was my 5th trans-Atlantic flight in the past two years. I've learned to get myself into a zone of mental stillness during long periods of travel, which leaves me unfazed by screaming babies and nosy customs officials. Being in such a state of mind makes the travel go much smoother. I spent some time today in the countryside of southern England, immensely enjoying the amazing views, the brisk weather, and some good company. There were a few times when I chastised myself for not bringing my camera. I have to remember to always bring my camera with me when I go out, as there always seems to be something stimulating that I will find that would make a great reference photo for my artwork. Being back here makes me remember how much I love England. It's so wonderfully green, has an amazingly rich history, and the shops, pubs, and hotels maintain a refreshing individuality - in contrast with the chain stores and neverending strip malls that plague my home state of Florida. I love the architecture and the distinguished sense of age that permeates nearly every building and every narrow winding street. It's delightful to turn a corner and suddenly drive under a crumbling stone archway connected to the remnants of a building that has long since fallen away. The rolling green hills dotted with sheep and cows are utterly gorgeous, like a scene from a childhood dream. You can walk through these hills and often find no one else around, and feel sublimely alone and at peace with nature. As a child growing up in the dry flat lands and wet swamps of Florida, I always wondered if such green rolling hills even existed anymore. My trips to England have confirmed, much to my delight, that such places do still exist. I know I'm being a bit of a tease by writing about the magnificent English landscape and not showing any pictures, but if you close your eyes I know you will see it.

I'm still jet-lagged and have a lot of unpacking and organizing to do before I get on an art-making schedule. It won't be long before I'm back on track and I can't wait!

Ready for Take-Off!

This weekend I'll be returning to England! After finishing the 30 Day Artist, it's amazing how much time I've spent getting ready to leave... packing up paintings (over 30), organizing, gathering reference materials for paintings I'll do while abroad, and other general art business stuff... I haven't had time to work on a single piece of art yet this month! Which accounts for the slow start to this blog... but trust me, it will pick up. I miss painting already! I will only be in England for a month before going to France for three months, so I won't have a studio available during my stay in the UK. Therefore no painting for a month for me (sob, sob) but luckily I will have my colored pencils to keep me busy, and I am itching to work on more pieces from my Deep Thinkers series. I've already got background ideas for the frog drawing, but first I need to finish the froggie:

Here are two other completed drawings in this series:

Computational Reckoning 6" x 6" Prismacolor on Paper

available for purchase

Song 6" x 6" Prismacolor on Paper

available for purchase

This is a new series, so I haven't yet fully articulated to myself what these pieces will embody. The basic gist is that these drawings are a series of images in which various animals are juxtaposed with evidence of human thought, in the form of mathematical equations, quotes, definitions, musical scores, etc. These pieces depict a zen-like transcendent bridge between conceptual thinking and animalistic consciousness. I'll post more thoughts about the series as it unfolds!

Welcome - Introduction

Welcome to my new blog, and thank you for being here! It's the third of April, and I am fresh off my month-long March stint at the 30 Day Artist. During that month I spent every day creating artwork, to reach a goal of 40 artworks completed in 30 days. Every night I blogged about the day's process, posting pictures and commentary as each work evolved to fruition. It was an insightful and invigorating experience, reconnecting me more fully with what actually happens during the creative process.

Thanks to the positive feedback I received from my 30 Day Artist efforts, I have decided to start my own blog documenting my artistic activity. I have found that to discuss the artwork each night after the work is done adds a cognitive layer to what can often be a subconscious (and solipsistic) process. I also find that by exposing the inner commentary that runs alongside the actual physical art-making, readers can gain a more comprehensive idea of what goes through the artist's head at certain points throughout the process.

I hope you will find this blog interesting and return for more. I will do my best to update it as often as I can. I do have a lot of travelling coming up in the near future, but hopefully my various locales will offer a bit of spice and excitement to my artwork and my posts.

Thank you for joining me!