I think I’m starting to remember how to draw. I hadn’t really drawn anything in years when I decided I wanted to get back to it. Though my sketches still need plenty of work, they are starting to resemble what I’m drawing – a step in the right direction.

In this series, I focused on still life, getting the image on the page quickly, and not using an eraser. The idea is to be less dependent on erasing so that perhaps the lines will be a bit more accurate in the first place. Also, just as I’ve done with collaging, I have a habit of committing to lines that are wrong by drawing them in too darkly, when it’s a better idea to draw lightly until I’m sure a line is where it should be.

I need to get better at conveying the weight and dimension of an object so it doesn’t look like it’s floating in space.

I have a little bit of a thing for plastic bags in paintings. It amazes me how they can be made to look shiny…

This is why an eraser has been my best friend.

Once in awhile, I do a public facing website (as opposed to the internal projects I do at work). This is the most recent such project I did for Jas Knight. I used WordPress, my favorite CMS, and I think it highlights the artist’s paintings nicely.

I created this collage in 2006, before working with John Abner, who has given me a lot of guidance on how to do so properly. No advanced planning went into this piece in terms of layout, colors, sizes, shapes, guiding the viewers eye, etc, but I still relate strongly to my inspiration.

It’s an old theme but worth revisiting again and again, resetting our brains and ejecting erroneous beliefs. As women we are constantly pummeled with “encouragement” to be our best selves – our apparent lack of inherent value is a multibillion dollar industry. If you don’t have the plumpest lips, the best hair (you know, like a horse), the whitest whites and brightest brights, if you haven’t covered your varicose veins, gotten rid of your acne (60 days at a time), banished belly fat (who needs a healthy diet when you can just take a pill), and been validated by diamond jewelry (ideally the mother of all diamond jewelry, the engagement ring) well, dying alone may not be such a bad thing.

Wear makeup, whiten your teeth, and accept the rock, just don’t let that be all there is.

One of my first oil paintings from 2008. The process of painting for this piece was similar to stream of consciousness writing, where the painting comes together without a lot of intellectual interference from the artist.

I’ve drawn more eyes in my life than anything else so I’m not surprised that that’s where I automatically went with this one.

I did this underpainting in 2010 in a figure drawing/painting class at Fleisher Art Memorial with Paul Dusold. I took this picture with my iPhone so it’s a bit blurry. Although it’s challenging, I enjoy working from live models. There’s something about interacting with a living and breathing subject that still life can’t compete with, although still life doesn’t move, which is nice.

Another underpainting I did on my own, working from a photo for reference but essentially a made up figure I did to practice the technique.

I consider these two paintings done and don’t plan to add color. I enjoy these monocromatic studies and may do more. It would be interesting to try a real deal brunaille.

This collage started with the intent of highlighting the beautiful diversity in women of color. I ended up stopping after creating just two women because it felt complete in its own right. I would like to add more to this as a series or larger piece.

This is one of the first collages I did under the tutelage of John Abner, and the first one I considered complete. John taught me a few things that seem obvious now, probably most importantly to select and lay out all of the pieces before I start gluing things down. It’s nice to be able to make adjustments before gluing things then having to rip them off the page and potentially ruining them in the process…

A Chimila girl I met atop a mountain in Colombia during a mission trip. She and her family live in these mountains, in makeshift houses near a rumbling river. The medical team I was travelling with offered routine checkups, medicine and vitamins. We shared a meal, cooked by the Chimilas in an outdoor kitchen using the biggest cauldron I’ve ever seen.

This was one of the first things I saw when I reached the top of a mountain near the northern coast of Colombia. These girls are Chimila – a shrinking indigenous group I had the pleasure of spending a day with in 2008. It shook me to my core to see, up close and in real life, something I had previously only seen in pictures – a hand built hut with incomplete walls and a dirt floor. No electricity, no running water, no…furniture.

The kids were uncomfortable and maybe a bit distrustful at first as this group of strangers stared into their home and quietly took pictures. They quickly warmed up and had a ball playing around in front of the camera. These are some of the sweetest and most affectionate kids I’ve met in my life. I miss this place.

This beautiful white horse is used for transportation in the mountains.