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!

"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 (Digitally Edited Try-Out) Dec 25, 2025

During the preceding days, while working on my painting I had been considering changes to the composition,  but I wanted to do a digital "dress rehearsal" before I making big changes on the canvas.  So on December 25th, I uploaded the most recent photo of my painting, taken the day before (December 24th), and opened the image in Painter, on my computer so I could sketch in the changes I was considering.  My idea was to add some shapes to the foreground.  Because earlier, I had removed a road from the foreground of the original photo,  I decided to put a road back in, though in a very different position, one that would allow me to improve the composition . So with digital pastel, I sketched in the changes I was considering.  I was happy with the new composition, so printed this out to use as a guide as I made changes on the canvas.

Snow on Ski Trails (Painting as of Dec. 24, 2025)

Here is my painting as it looked on December 24th.  I worked on the sky, making the position of the sun more obvious.  I added detail to the mountains in the distance, and added some shadows to the ski trail in the foreground.  Although I was please with my progress at this point, I was still considering changes to the composition.  To be continued. . . . 

Snow on Ski Trails (Painting as of Dec. 23, 2025)

I finally got this painting started on December 23. I changed the plan again, deviating from my (revised) reference photo by simplifying the foreground even more. I used acrylic paint to rough in the sky and the mountains in the background, and the ski trail in the foreground.  I created the forested areas with collaged tissue paper.  This was quite rough but the main parts of the composition were in place, but with more changes to come.

Mountain Lake (Near DIllon) Painting as of December 21, 2025

Here is my painting as it looked on December 21, 2025.  I had two or three painting sessions that day. Working from my reference photo, I revised the sky and added snow to the mountains.  I added more texture to the mountains in the background, using a monoprint technique.  I also worked on the lake, adding some highlights and reflections.

Menorah on the Beach (Drawing Video)

Here is my menorah video for 2025.  I wanted to create this menorah to remember the victims of the attack at Bondi Beach and in honor of the Jewish community of Australia.   I created this on my iPad with the Procreate app.  

Snow on Ski Trails (Reference Photo Revised) as of Dec. 20, 2025

On December 19th, I had used Painter to edit my vacation photo so that I could use it as a reference photo for painting.  The next day, December 20th, I printied it out and took it into my home studio, but almost immediately decided to make changes.  I thought the foreground was too complicated.  So I revised it by drawing into the image (printed on computer paper) with conte crayon. I eliminated a ski trail on the right by drawing over it in green. I used white conte crayon to simplified the center ski trail, covering up a road and a stand of trees. I sketched in an area of green where I planned to join two areas of trees.  This is what my plan was when I began to lay out the composition on the canvas.  But there were more changes to come.

Reposting: Menorah in Window

Back in 2016, I used the Brushes app on my iPad to create this little video.  (Like the Procreate app, the Brushes app captured  a stroke-by-stroke drawing video.  I have already posted this video a couple of times but decided to repost it this year because it shows a  menorah in front of a window. Chanukah celebrates religious freedom and displaying the menorah a way of claiming that freedom. In some times and in some places, Jews can do that confidently. These days there is enough to be afraid of just about everywhere, apparently, but still you see menorahs in the window, outside the synagogue, in the town square, on the beach. . . .