This is a drawing I did on a white board at the Pearblossom Art Festival on May 4, 2019. It was fun trying to draw an octopus with human hands (which I had never done before).

Art is supposed to be an adventure! But I get too timid sometimes…. I started this “puddle paint” watercolor painting well, but for the last week it has been sitting around and I didn’t know what to do to it next. I was thinking about taking a black sharpie and drawing big bold hair lines. But was that a good idea??! “Stop being so safe”, I finally told myself, just do it and create. And so I did –this last hour I added all the black lines. Do I like it? Not sure. But I like it I am being brave and taking chances. And I like this quote: “Art needs the courage to fail. If your’e going to be wrong, then by God, be thunderously, magnificently and gloriously wrong!!” The painting is not done yet. I hope I can continue to boldly create it till it is done. It feels good to be bold and not be too safe!

One of my favorite ways to paint that I have discovered is to use extreme wet-into-wet watercolor– I call it “puddle paint”! I started this particular adventure with puddle paint a couple days ago. Like most adventures I don’t know how it will turn out until it is completed. But it will be different– because there is a side view head and a front view head merged together…. And I think I am going to add some more unique things (but I don’t know yet what they are going to be).

I drew this picture for Halloween 2018 and left it up into December.  One of my students asked me if I was going to draw a Christmas Picture. So I just added Santa hats and turned one ghost into Santa Claus.

This morning at Skytower Park in Lancaster, CA from 10am to 12 noon about 14 students and I took on the challenge of painting a Tucson Desert watercolor painting that I originally spent MANY hours painting back in 1984! We had fun, but were not able to include all the details of the original painting in our 2 hour time slot. In this photo I am holding up 2 or the student’s paintings (the students, ranging in age from 10 to over 60, all followed along with me as I painted the larger painting).

Early this morning I took my dog on a walk and I came across this dead stick bush. I liked how it looked. I thought I saw a dragon head and neck in it. I took a photo and later printed it out, but couldn’t seem to draw a dragon onto it. But I did use my pencil to find and create another more unique fantasy creature!

My favorite class I teach is Illustration at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, CA. I do one to two hour critiques each week of all their cool creations. The semester ended last week, and I am posting a few of the 2018 Illustration Class imaginative illustrations!

One of my favorite things to draw and paint is the human face. And I like to do it with lots of color and expressiveness. I am going to do a free 15 minute demonstration how I paint a portrait on July 28, 2018 in Lancaster. And right after that I will be conducting a 2 hour workshop walking participants through how to draw and paint a portrait. I hope to see some of you there!

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Good advice, I think, for when we start creating: “Just Play and Have Fun!”
Sometimes I think artists and art students get hung up on being too serious and trying to make their art “perfect”. This is an image for my new book (Draw Fantasy Creatures) that I am in the middle of working on.

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I think I may have finally finished this painting I started 5 years ago. It is a girl, snake, and an apple.  But to me it has also become something more– an image of the battle in the mind that goes on between us and the monsters that try to keep us from creating and being the person we long to be.