notan, part one 9.10.2020

Earlier this year I bought a book titled Notan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design. Notan, a Japanese term, involves the concept of dark and light; black and white; positive and negative. It's a small book of 80 pages, but it's jam packed with great information. As a life-long student, I was pretty excited to discover …

progression of a painting 4.9.2020

Untitled, watercolor, 11x15 on Arches paper

berit in color 2.27.2020

This is the last of my pieces that were "in progress" at the beginning of 2020. And I've finished it! And all the others that were in progress! There are probably plenty of artists who have a group of unfinished works they're working on, but my small pile of works in progress were a constant …

watercolor charts 2.6.2020

A couple summers ago, I took a watercolor class where I learned that I could make a variety of colors by mixing only primary colors together: blue, yellow and red. All my long life, I've used pre-mixed colors in my paintings, and even though I mixed those premixed colors together to get other colors, it …

elly and buckley watercolor 1.30.2020

As part of my ongoing 2020 goal to finish all my WIP (work in process) paintings, I completed my oldest WIP! Yay me! I started this painting back in 2016. Before I had any watercolor instruction. The paper I used isn't even watercolor paper. And the paper's been taped to the board for so long …

self portrait with lavender hair 9.26.2019

Here's a process post about a recent self portrait. I started with a 14x17 inch piece of 98 pound Canson XL mix media paper. With a pencil, I drew a blind contour self portrait, then went over the pencil lines with a black china marker. Using oil pastel, I added color. And then I added …

elly, watercolored 8.15.2019

Here's a painting a finished last month. It's a watercolor portrait of my second child, daughter Elly Anne. I start with a photo that includes a lot of shadow, or light and dark, then print it out in b/w and color to 8.5x11. I use the b/w copy to trace the image and shadow areas …

self portrait in clay 5.30.2019

This spring, in the hand-building and sculpture class I took at the local community college, I made a bust. I tried to shape the face to look like me, and don't think I was very successful, but I still love how she turned out! Here are pics of the process and final sculpture. This is …

hanging planters 3.14.2019

I'm in the process of making about half a dozen hanging planters. I thought this would be a great way to combine two of my favorite things: clay and plants! Above are two process shots: when I first threw the pots on the wheel, and just after I trimmed them and punched out three holes …

female head planter 11.1.2018

I'm in the process of creating a large garden planter in the shape of a female head. I've seen several created by other makers, and thought one of these would look great in my garden! I started off by throwing two cylinder shapes on the wheel. The taller pot on the left has no bottom …