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A handful of summer 2024 sessions. Small sunsets, palm trees against a burning sky, and a winged figure that has been glowing on my easel all July.
I love working small during the warm months. Quick pieces, loud colors, and the freedom to try something new every evening.
Still in progress, palette and all.
More of these are on the way. The summer always brings the brightest colors out of me.
Winter 2024 pulled me into black and white. Stripping the color away forces me to think in pure value, light against dark, and it sharpens everything I do when the color comes back.
Here are a few of those sessions: a snowy ridge, a stormy coastline, and a long pine forest panorama that took me the better part of a month to call finished.
From the first trees to the final snowfall.
Sometimes taking the rainbow away is exactly what teaches me how to use it.
Every pocket painting starts the same way for me. A little blank canvas, a flat coat of color, and a whole lot of patience while it dries.
This one was a Gengar. I laid down orange and blue grounds first, then blocked in the silhouette in a solid deep purple so I could feel the shape before a single detail went in. Once that shape felt mischievous enough, the grin and those red eyes basically painted themselves.
Small canvas, big attitude.
Tiny canvases keep me honest. There is nowhere to hide a lazy line when the whole piece fits in your hand.
January was a busy month at the easel and I want to share a few of the pieces that were living on it.
A red mountain over a field of poppies that kept changing on me for weeks, a neon pink peak that went from a loose underpainting to full glow, and a smoky cloud scene where a little figure floats through the haze.
Early January, then a month later with the figures in.
Not every piece gets finished in a day. Some of them need to sit with me for a while before they tell me what they want to be.