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Persephone

Persephone is a Greek story of the daughter of a goddess who is stolen by the ruler of the underworld. This was a commision done for a friend who collaborated with me about the theme for the painting. In the story Persephone eats six seeds of the friut which means she has to stay in the ufor six months out of the year. In mourning her goddess mother then put the worl under the spell of winter for those six months.

Frog Bubbles and Two Fairies

Frog bubbles is a painting commisioned by my aunt. The fairies are my wonderful little cousins and the frogs were modeled for me by a very considerate inmate of a local zoo. I tried to use a lot of the bold coloring of the environment found in utah, especially in the dry areas. Finding bold but not pastel was a bit of a challenge but I love the reds and yellows!

Fairies At The Bottom of the Garden

This is the last of the paintings done for some family friends! She wanted to be painted as a fairy and that put me in mind of a poem I once read as a child about a little girl who seamed to be the opnly to realize that a band of fairies had taken up residence at the bottom of the garden. She decides at the end that she will become thier queen.

A garden meeting

This latest commision was actually done as a portrait for a family 's first grandson. They are decorating the nursery with Beatrix Potter wall paper and wondered if I could pick a similair idea and match son of Miss Potter's color schemes. I started to wonder what it would be like to be a small child waiting outside when all of a sudden Peter Rabbit pops in for a visit! I imagine the mother off somewhere completley unaware of what she is missing.

Beatrix Potter Montage

One of the things I was taught at school was to practice my art by painting pieces done by my favorite artists. I thought I would do a Beatrix Potter piece as a tribute. One of my absolute favorites!

Thumbelina stops to smell the flowers

This is the second portrait done for the same family as Alice in Wonderland. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do, but when I was sketching out a few ideas it occurred to me how often we have to work hard to enjoy things that should be everyday pleasures. In order to stop and "smell the flowers" Thumbelina has to take the time to stack objects bigger then herself to reach the one she really wants! I suppose that somtimes simple things are not as simple as they should be, but they prove to be worth the effort in the long run. By the way, the flower she is smelling happens to be a magnolia. I guess that in reality she would have needed to stack more then a book, a matchbox and a mug to reach it. Somtimes I find that even when I feel as if things in life are to hard thier's someone in the background who is quietly making things easier for me.

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Alice at tea

This is the first piece that I am doing for a family with three grandchildren. The oldest was perfect for a scene from Alice in Wonderland. I used an old picture of one of my sisters friends for reference as the Mad Hatter. He doesn't know about it yet, and Im not sure if i am going to tell him.

A World in Blocks

I recently came across this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson and have been thinking about it ever since. The little boy is the son of a family friend.
What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and Palaces, Temples and Docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam
But I can be happily biulding at home.
Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea
There I'll establish a city for me.

The Christmas Elf

I wanted to make a CHristmas card this year and when I went through past photo references, I knew that this little boy would be a perfect Christmas elf! The gold paint on the border is metalic and reflective which gave the whole project a happy jester feel.

The Mage and the Wizard

This was a comission recently completed for a customer as a gift for his father. He asked that follow a specific format and that i depict him as a fire mage and his father as a wizard. It was interesting to paint a picture according to a scene that he saw very clearly in his head. It was a good practice in portraiture as well as in depicting something other then what I myself had in mind.