I’m an urban naturalist. That means that I love my city (Baltimore) and enjoy wandering around looking at its denizens-pigeons, squirrels, sparrows, starlings, seagulls, and the occasional cardinal and junco ( a sparrow size bird with white belly and black head). There is a pigeon roost near me-an abandoned building with concrete bricks that the pigeons adore. Here’s some pictures!
I don’t usually paint from photographs – preferring studio still lifes or plein air painting. But someone posted a picture of their beautiful child and I was inspired.
Lately I’ve gotten back into watercolor painting. The tree paintings were inspired by a photograph by my friend Sooyong Kim. I found a caterpillar pencil sketch from summer and decided to color it. The abstract came from testing colors on a scrape piece of paper but I really like it!
Recently I watched several videos of watercolor painting and decided to try a looser hand than I normally use. I played with this in my studio while dreaming of warmer days.
I’ve been drawing my cat Nekko at least once daily for a month now. Why? She’s cute (of course! She’s a cat!) and I enjoy drawing people and things that I love. She is definitely people I love and of course, she’s cute. (Did I mention Nekko is my cat?) Here’s the latest of her sleeping on the Bmore Art magazine I was trying to read.
It’s fun to get out and experiment. Today I went to the zoo to sketch whatever animals I could find. The pelicans were standing around after eating, the bear dug itself a nest and fell asleep. And just as I was drawing a profile of the elephant, she turned her back to me and sauntered off.
I’ve kept notebooks to write ideas, scribble in, and well…scribble more in. Keeping them handy has helped me create my poems, stories, and art. Looking through my old notebooks is like going back in time and discovering who I was. Here’s a few drawings from the past year.
Trigger Warning: I draw my cat a lot. Cuteness overload may occur.
Placid waves
wash warm
Over toes, knees,
belly to breasts.
Drink in sun.
Float
cotton-candy clouds
framing
rose,
lemon,
sapphire
sky.
gaia mouse 