Persimmon Flight

Persimmon Flight
oil on carved wood
30" x 40" (or something like that)

The deep winter blues had me wanting some eye candy art. I sure do love painting persimmons.

A Tea Ceremony and Soldiers Marching through Time

Tea Ceremony
2' x 4'
This ones been fun. I do so like to combine all the ways I like to paint- you know. So, dear Reader, I have a tree painting, an animeople people, and carved wood. Graphic style with realistic. Two wood ducks having tea in a bonsai


close ups


Foot Soldier
30" x 48"?

and in case you thought I was just sitting around. Originally I was going to paint each of these animeoples as a separate painting. But who wants to dwell on soldiers for half a year? So I combined them, focusing my attentions on my favorites. The research was fun- I had to find foot-soldiers through time- not generals- and then use the art from that period, and find an animal they would have depicted.

Is it Done Yet?

.Rower
2'X4' oil on carved wood

Another go at Rower. So much more interesting. Oh how I struggled. But- so often, the struggle adds such fabulous layers and depth to a painting- especially oil. Is it done? Maybe. But I'm setting it aside for a bit. A time out for this one. I do like the flat images mingling with the three dimentional/realistic ones. Been playing with this more and more in the last year.

Meanwhile there is a chicken in my bathtub. It had a bath, yes, and now is staying out of the mud (besides what it self-generates). We are off to Cloverdale early tomorrow. I have some pieces in a juried show there and Benjamin is entering his now clean chicken in the citrus fair. Wish us luck!

a close-up of the carved tree

Beware of God

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Beware of God
2'X4'
Please click on image for larger view!

My son is very inquisitive about the universe and its many properties. He likes to discuss God. What is God? If God made us who made God. This sort of philosophical discussion. So I painted this one with benjmain in mind. It is a discussion painting- what is God? Is the tree God (and if it is is it dead or dormant or...)? Is the Boy God? The old mans eye in all its grey shades, or the black and white child's eye? Or is the art God (we used to make these in camp and for some reason, though it was not religious camp, the finished weaving was called a Gods Eye) ? Is the grass? Is the fence? Is the peeling wall or the broken cement?
And of course the warning- Beware of God. Of the notion of God? Or the attempt to identify God/define God? The following of a religion? Or Beware- as in 'be in awe of' God? Or just a silly sign. A sign from God? ha ha ha.
I'm not sure if the painting is done (particularly the foreground) but its going on a little journey friday so I thought Id post it.

Persimmons in the Winter so Easy To Look At

.Persimmon Dreams 40"W

I do so love to paint Persimmon trees in the winter. This painting is for the Santa Rosa Arts Council Competition, if the little tinnie entry form miraculously wasn't lost in the mail. Somewhat pedestrian, but I fear the world of art in Sonoma County is, for the most part, quite pedestrian, or trys too hard to be modern, probably in protest of the banal plein air paintings that seem to dot this coast in a North Bay fog of blandness. So I made a nice painting with an interesting surface-layers and layers and carving, but easy to look at without being too mind bendingly odd. I might add some reflected red light. Or not.

Persimmon Thief and the August 1st Show as well as Grumbling About Art Reproduction

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Sometimes the influences of having lived in Taiwan, not to mention having had an interest in Asian art from the time I was about ten years old, comes through quite obviously. This painting, Persimmon Thief, was first drawn in with Chinese ink and brush so that, when I carved the branch out, I retained the feel of those brush lines I so love. Of course, it's tall vertical shape is like a scroll as well. Painted about a year ago (unlike all the other just finished pieces in this blog) it hangs in my husbands Edward Jones office where his clients say they feel like the raccoon, getting away with their higher percentages and dividends and whatnot's, i.e. their share of the financial pie.

Oh but I do so despise (I know that's a strong word but it is such a frustration) art reproduction. This painting is taller than myself and I am forced to tile together almost seven separate photos to create one. Each photos light is slightly different as the camera adjusts itself and by the time I've fiddled the thing into existence it is never quite what is on the wood. This piece is not so 'minty' colored. And it is so hard to view it so small. sigh. grumble grumble.

A few of my paintings (and likely this one) will be hanging what I hope to be a fabulous show August 1st in Healdsburg at the Palette Gallery (who's name may change very soon- Ill keep ya posted). A group show, we have all done labels for EricKent wines, a really fabulous and unusually artist-friendly label. EricKent will be pouring excellent wine as you peruse the wonderful art. Please join us! And check out Eric Kent Wines homepage to see all their fabulous artists and wines!

Printing Lace Shadows and Inheritences

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Lace Shadows
4'X2'



One month after I jetted off to Taiwan to see what was up with that guy Norman and I, my step father passed away. I didn't have enough money to fly back to the states and my mom told me not to try to return so I didn't. But a year later, when I did manage to get back she had gotten rid off just about everything that my stepdad had owned. Actually-everything. I had nothing to remember him by and being the sadly materialistic person that I am I was quite distraught.

But then, about a year ago I started collecting old crocheted bits of lace from craigslist, garage sales and flea markets. I mentioned this in passing to my mother. It turned out my step dad actually knew how to make lace and my mom still had one of his pieces, albeit a bit ripped. I sewed the lace onto a pillow, embroidering what lines were missing. The other pieces of lace I have found are either speckling my house like the freckles on my hands or being used in a new series of paintings I am working on. I actually roll oil paint onto the lace and print it, wood cut style onto my paintings, and then carve around them a bit. It's fun. I sold the first one, "Stork", already, done in my favorite long vertical, about 6 feet tall.

I just finished Lace Shadows, but instead of leaving only the color of the unfinished wood cuts I stained the wood lamp black in the shadowy cuts and rolled the lighter hue over to catch the edges. I am currently working on a sky themed piece to balance all the dark shadow.