"Mallard Duck"
Collage on paper
9"x12"

I had a lot of fun with this one - I focused mainly on texture and tried to stay away from solid colors (although I still went ahead and added a few solid color shapes to this). I didn't take any progress pictures of the "Mallard Duck," because I was in the zone while working on him. After I completed this piece, I realized that it may have been inspired by all the mallard ducks I collaged for Duck & Fish.

So in my last post I mentioned we had an earthquake here. Then this weekend we had a hurricane alert for Irene. I heard lots of people swarmed the stores for milk and bread, although I stocked up on books and green tea to read my way through the storm. Turns out it only lasted a day, and it wasn't that bad at all. Just got a bit of rain and strong winds. The only casualty was our grill that got knocked over, but no damage was done to anything near us. Hope everyone else stayed safe during the storm!

"Red Coffee Cup"
Collage on mat board
5"x7"

I completed this piece a while ago and then I put a stack of magazines on it and forgot about it. While sifting through magazines as I worked on piecing together another collage, I found this one again. It was only made with coated paper, and for some reason the solid colors didn't look right. So I went ahead and started cutting out bits and pieces of texture from magazines until the collage looked like the image above. Temporarily losing this work of art helped me in the end - I was able to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and make adjustments that made the collage more colorful.

In other news...did you hear? D.C. felt an earthquake yesterday. I thought it was construction and didn't think twice, but when folks started evacuating from all the buildings on the street, I decided I should follow suit. It was strange feeling the floor beneath me shaking. Reminds me of the earthquake we had last year - which was much smaller than yesterday's. Last year, I stayed up until five o'clock in the morning working on a project - felt my chair vibrating and saw my computer monitor shaking, thought I must be hallucinating from sleep deprivation and decided to call it a night and go to sleep. Didn't realize what had happened until I read the news the next day. Craziness.

"Benjamin in Deep Thought"
Collage on paper
18"x24"

After I thought I was finished with this portrait a couple weeks ago, I realized it needed a little more editing. So recently I did a little more collaging on it before I decided to declare it "finished." I'm not entirely happy with the result, but sometimes you just need to tell yourself you're finished with a work of art so you can keep moving forward. This piece was a bit of a struggle since it had been a while since I last tackled a portrait.

I have a couple more collages that I'll post soon. And at the moment I've gotten started with a couple new commissions, so I'll post progress pictures of those as well. I'm already getting some commission work that will be given as Christmas gifts, so I'll wait until after the holidays to post images of those pieces.

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great weekend! And I can't believe it will be September before long...

Bosty decided to join us on our trip to Lexington, North Carolina for my "Out of the Wild" group exhibit. He really wanted to check out Chapel Hill - so we were on the road again.

We ran into a bit of traffic getting out of Washington, D.C., which made Bosty a little impatient.

But eventually we made it to Chapel Hill. First stop? Crook's Corner for a bite to eat. Bosty really wanted to go there because of the pig on the roof. He thinks they should call it "Bosty's Corner" with a mini sculpture of him on the top.

We ordered some good 'old shrimp and grits. When we weren't watching our plates, Bosty decided to sample our food. He had quite a few samples by the end of the meal.

He liked the decor of the courtyard - they had lots of bamboo that made him feel like he was lounging in a jungle.

The next day we strolled around UNC's campus. Bosty decided that all my snapshots weren't picturesque unless he starred in them.

He got a little too excited when we walked by a construction site. Bosty really wanted to play on all the trucks and machines. We didn't want him horsing around there, so we decided to call it a day for this dog.

The other day we drove down to Lexington, North Carolina to install my artwork for the "Out of the Wild" exhibit. Seven of my animal collages will be on display from August 16th until December 12th at Davidson County Community College.

The artwork is installed in the lobby of the Mendenhall Administration Building.

Five of my collages are on the first floor. Above is a picture of Ben and myself - he was a big help with installing and shipping my artwork.

Then here's the staircase that goes to the second floor where you can find two more of my collages.

The exhibit coordinator is in the process of putting together a display of all the artists' postcards for the show. There's a total of nine artists in the juried exhibit.

After installing the show, I took a quick snapshot of the exterior of the building where the exhibit will be held. It was one busy day!

"Purple Beagle"
Collage on mat board
5"x7"

Another day, another doggie collage. I thought I'd have my latest portrait, "Benjamin in Deep Thought," ready for a blog post soon, but after glancing over the latest picture of the piece I realized there were a few revisions that I wanted to dive in with and complete. So alas, I'm sharing a smaller animal collage that was completed somewhat recently.


Lately I've been dabbling with some film work - figuring out how to work with editing, lighting, etc. Perhaps sometime in the future I'll tackle a few collage-related film pieces. We shall see...

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a glorious week - and happy-almost-Friday!

Last night was the opening reception for the "MiniSolos" exhibition at Touchstone Gallery in Washington, DC. The exhibit runs from August 4th until the 27th, and features the work of 37 area artists. I was pleased to be a part of this group exhibition. Above is a quick snapshot of myself in front of my artwork in the show.

Here's the next stage of "Benjamin in Deep Thought." I recently finished this portrait and will post an image of the completed piece in the next few days. This collage was a bit of a struggle for me since it had been several months since I worked on a portrait. Art really is a lot like practicing an instrument - if you set it aside long enough, you'll get a little rusty. So it's to be expected that the next couple of collages won't come to me as easily as they did a few months ago when I was somewhat of a collage-making-machine.

Nevertheless, I'm pleased that I was able to finish this collage without giving up on it. When I post the finished piece, you'll get a sense of how drastically the portrait changed. I reworked the face quite a bit and the sitter looks more serious than what you see here.