About the Art

I am a self taught artist and I have always experimented with different materials and styles.  Early on, I designed and built stained glass windows and those beginnings are the basis for the drawings I am doing now.  Designing for glass begins with a line drawing so that a pattern can be made.  The properties of glass are limiting and the soldered joints used to hold the glass together are large so the initial design needs to be understated. When I transitioned away from making windows, my designs remained the same stylistically but naturally became more intricate.

For the last three years I have really focused on my current style of line drawings full of trees and flowers.  My first tree drawings felt like they were missing something or rather somebody, that’s when I started including bunnies and sometimes other creatures.  I liked how expressive the little guys can be with very little detail.  Funny enough, the bunnies became a real hit with my audience and now they have taken up residence in my head. When I begin a new piece, the starting point begins with what the bunnies are doing.

It was a fluke that I discovered masonite as a substrate at the same time that I began my “Bunny Quest”.  It is an unusual material for drawing, but through experimentation, I discovered I can draw directly on the surface with India ink and add color with colored pencils.  This process creates a smooth, slightly glossy finish with some of the texture of the prepared board telegraphing through the work giving the piece more depth, similar to brush strokes on a painting.  My personal drawing technique along with my unusual choice in materials blends into a really unique and special finished product.

My most favorite drawings are large and intricately detailed so that the viewer can return multiple times and find something new.  They are the culmination of my love of pattern, color and our natural surroundings. The creative process is a methodical calm, an intense relaxation where I can escape into trailing patterns, joyful colors and a little bit of humor.  I like to think of my art as a portal into another reality.  If you were to step through, you would step into a new world with all the same parts, just put together differently. Everything is a little better, the music is more melodic, the flowers are more fragrant, the colors are brighter, the weather is perfect and the bunnies rule.