Here is the shark eye shells that are part of a 3 image piece that I'm working on for the aquarium show. Shark Eyes are found in shallow sandy flats and drill through through prey's shell for food. The holes that they drill have beveled edges. I have picked up many of these over the years. The largest one I have is about 2 1/2 inches in diameter.





These are venus clam, a pair. The real shells are much, much smaller than this work. They are only about an inch across. I really, really, underestimated how hard getting the "basketweave" pattern on these shells would be.

I will be adding these to my fineartamerica.com account so that will be available for prints.

Fuquay Varina Centennial Art Show

"Past Prime" and "Solo" have been juired into the Fuquay Varina Centennial "Paint the Town" art show. They will be hanging at the Community Center on Main Street March 6,7 and 8.

I am happy to be juried into the show as there only about 25 artist exhibiting work. For more information go here

You can see "Past Prime" and "Solo" at backcreekgallery.com

Remembering Ziggy

My cat of 15 years crossed over to be with his brothers this morning. He was a wonderful friend and I will miss him dearly. He has such spunk. He was truly my furry four-legged child.

A small work, only 7 x 5 inches. It's the first of three shell works that are going into a frame and mat set designed to hold multiple photos.

This is a welk shell, native to NC. I found the shell some years ago.

This is Prismacolor pencils on navy blue Fabriano pastel paper. I've had this paper for several years and I think that the color has probably been discontinued by now.

A Pleasant Surprise!

This is "Past Prime". It is a mixed media piece of watercolor and colored pencil. It was juried into the "Explore This 5" 2009 CPSA show. The show will be online this year. Awards will be posted on Feb 1.

It's the first CPSA show I've been juried into. Although, they were only 250 entries this year, and 50 were selected for the show. So if we do the math, that means that 1/5 or 20% were accepted. (That was to keep me from going on the big ego trip!)

I'm in some pretty good company. Names I recognized were Pat Averill, Vera Curnow, Kay Dewar, Elizabeth Patterson, and Ranjini Venkatachari.

December VSD

Here's my take on December's sketch photo. It was so snowy and cold looking. I didn't see much color and so I thought the ink drawing with just a touch of color would fit it.

This is a small work, 7 x 5 inches. It was done using a Sakura Pigment pen in a couple of sizes. The color was added with Derwent Inktense pencils.

I did take a bit of creative license with some of the elements in the photo.

You can view a larger image by clicking here

Visit the Virtual Sketch Date Blog here.

November Virtual Sketch

It's not exactly a sketch.... more of a manipulation. But I've been fighting bronchitis for most of the month and this is about the best I can do right now.

This was done in Photoshop Elements. It's been cropped, light and darks have been pushed, and then the charcoal and chalk filter has been applied.

It turned out abstract looking. I might have to try a print on velata paper. Velata would preserve the "charcoal" fuzzy look of things.

I'm an amateur photographer too, but then I think most artists will work with whatever media is in front of them - pencils, paints or pixels.