Hwy 30 through Arkansas, July 6:45 a.m.,14H x 11W inches oil pastels on paper, Paper Places series, 3-inch-wide white double mat, 26H x 22W inch white custom wood frame with crackle finish, sold.
Driving back to Texas on our annual 2 1/2 day trip to eastern Ontario, I enjoy being on the road before sunrise. On lengthy journeys it’s best to take advantage of every splendor along the way, then the trip doesn’t seem to take so long.

 

Eucalyptus Tree, Queen Mary’s Falls, Queensland, Australia, 14H x 11W inches oil pastels on paper, Paper Places series. 3 inch wide white double mat and 26H x 22W inch white custom-built white wood frame with crackle finish.

Post-dated note: This drawing earned a spot in American Art Jury’s 2007 Spring/Summer online exhibition and gallery http://www.artjury.com

Galahs in Traffic, 14H x 11W inches oil pastels on paper, has 3-inch-wide white double mat and 26H x 22W inch white custom-built white wood frame with crackle finish.

Flocks of Galahs fly head on into cars on the highway while driving to the Kangaroo Island ferry, South Australia. A tragic phenomenon – many lay dead on the side of the road, for miles. This is a busy highway, and next to stopping, it was almost impossible to miss them.
This started out to be a drawing of the Norfolk Island Pines growing in the south-central coastal regions of Australia. It’s not unusual for me to completely re-work oil pastel drawings after a day or two of work, when they could be called finished. Sometimes after a period of study, radical changes are in order, as in this case. After two days of work, while recalling the horrifying scene that day, it was clear that the style in the first stage of the drawing was stagnant and ordinary. Adding the blurry, in-your-face Galah is much more effective. See the first version here.

Post-dated note in 2007: Galahs in Traffic placed in Artjury.com’s 2007 Fall/Winter Juried Online Exhibition.

Post-dated note, 2022: Accepted in the J. Mane Gallery’s Fins, Feathers and Fur 2020 exhibition.

 

Galahs in Traffic, version 1 – this drawing started out to be a portrait of the Norfolk Island Pines growing in this coastal area of South Australia. Many of the oil pastel pieces in the Paper Places series have a first stage at the end of a day or two worth of work where it could be called finished, then after studying for a few days, months or even years, if it’s not dynamic enough it may need to be changed.
This is an area unlike any other, where flocks of Galahs flew directly into the traffic on the main highway leading to the Kangaroo Island ferry. Dead Galahs lay along the side of the road for miles. After two days of work and recalling the horrifying feelings of seeing all those dead birds, it’s clear that the drawing as it is in the stage above, is stagnant and kind of ordinary even though it could be called finished. The style needs reworking because of the subject matter and what takes place there every day.

Eneggma, set of 4H x 4W dry pastels on paper, part of sketches prepared for “The Perfection of Small Birds” by American Poet Hannah Gerber. Frames use crackle glaze and off-white acrylics over robin-egg blue. Sold.

Dust Bath, 4H x 6W inches dry pastels on charcoal paper, for Hannah Gerber’s The Perfection of Small Birds

 

Chickadee 02, 4H x 6W inches charcoal on paper, another sketch for Hannah Gerber’s The Perfection of Small Birds

Chickadee 01, 8 x 10 inches charcoal on paper, for The Perfection of Small Birds, by Poet Hannah Gerber

Hannah was only looking for cover Art, but when commissioned to do only one design a lot of preliminary sketches are presented also, partly as a way of warming up but also to give clients a selection. As a result, extras were also used on inside pages.

Dusk, 8H x 10W inches dry pastels, graphite on charcoal paper.  A few sketches for Poet Hannah Gerber’s book The Perfection of Small Birds will be posted this week. This one was inspired by “Dawn”, a recent acrylic painting.

Dawn, 13H x 37W  x 2D inches acrylics on canvas, wrapped sides painted, scene continues onto narrow frame. Inspired by sparrows on the fence in our back yard, singing during dawn every morning as if to create the day with their song! Sold.