Early Mother's Day Flowers (photo)

These beautiful flowers were delivered a few days early so I could enjoy them all Mother's Day weekend, and I certainly am!

Flora, The Flowering Cod (as of April 21, 2026)

This is my entry for the annual Cod Auction to benefit Marblehead Festival of Arts as it looked on April 21st. Some 50 artists decorate wooden cutouts of codfish which are displayed in Marblehead and then auctioned. This year I was inspired by photos of a species of cod called "flowering cod."  Actually, the name was more inspiring to me than the actual appearance of the fish:  rows of brown shapes that only vaguely look like flowers, against a stippled skin.  But then the idea came to me: I would make rows of shapes that acctually looked like flowers, I would shift the color from brown to rose-gold, and would replace the stippled markings with polka dots.  Once I had the idea, the design came quickly.  I drew a mock-up on paper posted here recently.   And on April 21,  as you can see, I sketched  the design onto the wooden cutout. 

Flora, The Flowering Cod (Sketch as of April 18, 2026)

Every year I decorate a wooden cod for the Marblehead Cod Auction, to benefit the Marblehead Festival of Arts.  I had been thinking of what to do this year.  I started looking though pictures of different kinds of codfish.  I found one called "the flowering cod."  Although the name sounded promising, the photos of the actual fish were not.  The fish has brown markings which vaguely resemble flowers, against a lighter background of stipled skin.  That didn't sound appealing. But I kept thinking about it. What if the markings actually looked like flowers? What if I substituted a pink-tinted gold for brown? What if the stippled skin became polka-dots? So I drew this sketch of a codfish decorated with flowers and polkadots. . I traced my wooden cod cut-out onto a big piece of paper and drew this sketch.  I would call her Flora.

"Mountains of Home" (paintings on display at Porter Mill)

On February 5th, some of my mountain paintings were hung in the lobby of Porter Mill Studios here in Beverly, MA..  The title of this show is "Mountains of Home," all paintings of my home state of Colorado. After all my were on the wall, I took this video.  

"Winter Sunrise" (Drawing Video)

Yesterday I created this little drawing video on my iPad. I am sending this out to wish everyone peace, love, health, and hope in 2026.

Snow on Ski Trails (Acrylic Mixed Media Painting)

Here is my finished painting as it looked on December 29th, the day I took it to Galatea Fine Arts in Boston for the annual all members show. As usual, I made the many small, and possibly insignificant, changes as I finish a painting.  In this case, I also made a small but important change to the shape of the road, worth doing even at the last minute because it improved the perspective. 

Snow on Ski Trails (Painting as of December 28, 2025)

Here is my painting as it looked on December 28th.  I was approaching the finish line on this one.  (The first stop for this painting: the Galatea Fine Arts member show "In From the Cold", in January of 2026. In fact, the date for dropping the painting off was the next day!)   I made a number of small changes but the most important:  additional light on the distant mountain range, and some changes to the shape and color of the road in the foreground.