I've only been scuba diving once in the Florida Keys. It was an experience I'll never forget. Unfortunately, living in the state of Michigan I don't get the chance to see much of the ocean. Painting the reef was almost as much fun as actually seeing it. It's also a way to share such beauty with others who may never get the chance to actually go there.


Sea Lions Playing in a Kelp Forrest: 27" x 16" Oil on canvas

My first attempt at an underwater painting, Coral Reef, was such a success that I decided to continue painting underwater images just for the fun of it.


Watching and Waiting:29" x 22" Oil on canvas board.

As a college painting assignment to "paint a nude model" I set out to paint in the style of Borris Vellejo, (one of my favorite illustrators,) just to see if I could come close to his technique. With no disrespect to our model intended, he just wasn't the body building studly type that Borris usually depicts in his wild fantasy art. Our model made no attempt to hold a pose(knowing he would have to sit still for three hours at a time,) plopped down on a bar stool and with just gazed in to space. I just went with the idea that he had been there so long he bacame part of his perch.


Everything is Relative: 36" x 30" Acrylic on canvas.

I do get into my artwork sometimes! Actually this was my first experiment using both textured acrylics and oil glazes together. The effect is pretty convincing and I’ve gone on to use this technique again in other works.
AWARDS; Scholarship award, student art show 1995.
Accepted at the Carnegie Center for the Arts jurried competition, Three Rivers MI.
Grand champion award at the Cass Co Fair.


Wierd World of the Unisat: 40" x 30" Oil on canvas.

So what exactly is a Unisat? Well, if you took a Unicorn and crossed it with a bat-winged Pegasus you would have a Unisat. Of course such a strange animal must surely come from a very strange world.


Alien Window18" x 23" Acrylic on canvas board.

If you were an alien from some distant world, do you think you would have a rectangular window just like here on Earth? This painting is listed as a "student work" because it was an experiment in a few different techniques I had not yet tried. Both texturing with thick mediums and glazing over an acrylic painting with such thin glaze that it actually looks like a stained glass window. Overall, this didn't come out too bad but I am my worst critic. I put one too many coats of glaze on losing much of the transparency, and also decided to change the shape of the window AFTER I had textured it. The line that was corrected, though not visible on your screen, is visible to me. Well, I learned a lot doing this one and probably will repeat the process on a future work.


I C Moons: 10" x 24" Acrylic and oil on canvas.

Ah, I seeeeeeeeeee!


Where Icy rocks Dance27" x 25" Acrylic on canvas with oil glaze.

As an artist I can take you to places you could never go or view places that only exist in my mind. I love doing space paintings. Though it doesn’t show up very well in this computer image, the asteroids are done by applying thick modeling paste and then actually carving out the craters before painting them. The end result is a very 3-D feel.

WINNER; best of show at the 1997 Dowagiac arts and crafts show with this painting.


Explorer45" x 17" Acrylic on canvas.

Ah, this is one of those paintings that really loses something on the computer. A product of all my fooling around with texture, the cliffs on each side are highly textured giving this one a real 3D feel that just doesn't show up.
Aside from my technical problems, the theme of the painting is simple. I like to take you to other places. Places you might never see, such as the coral reef, or places that you couldn't possibly see as with the space paintings. Just imagine yourself walking between the cliffs of this other world. What would you find around the corner?


Chair Study #1 14" x 11" Oil on board.

Here is an old lawn chair I found in the trash. I cleaned it, painted it, and wove a new seat for it. The chair itself is a work of art and seems to have become a good subject for practice paintings.


Chair Study #2 14" x 11" Oil on board.

An experimental painting where I tried a completely different style from the Chair study #1. I used the exact same scene, just changed the technique.


Chair Study #3 14" x 11" Oil on board.

Here I let my sense of humor through a bit. I’ve been working on several space paintings and decided to include what's come to be known around my house simply as “the chair.” Who knows where the chair will go next.


Ready for Romance 50" x 33" Acrylic on canvas.

This was a wonderful assignment in my painting class at Southwestern Michigan College. The assignment was to “paint like a famous artist of your choice.” While looking through the various art books I came across what I was sure was a photograph but the caption read “acrylic on canvas” by Audrey Flack. I couldn’t believe that was a painting and with considerable reassurance from my teacher I decided I could “be Audrey” at least for a little while. My teacher then produced a brand new airbrush and compressor and told me “I haven’t a clue how it works but your welcome to try.” Wow! The next step was to get a book about how she works and try it. Ms. Flack photographs still lifes and uses the projected image as a guide to paint by. Unfortunately I didn’t find this out until I was well under way. Instead of a slide, I used a regular snapshot. This does not project through an opaque projector very well so most of the painting was simply eyeballed from a small snapshot rather than projected. I also used a brush for much of the under painting saving the airbrush work for the subject matter. All in all I’m pretty happy with the results. Keep in mind here that this was only my second year as a painting student. Not long before this one was done, I was just learning “which end of the brush to hold.”


The Odd Ball 25" x 19" Acrylic on canvas board.

This is my first attempt at a true abstract painting. It's also an experiment using texture. (Something that just doesn't show up on the computer.) I don’t understand abstracts so what better way to learn about something than to try it. I still don’t know if I understand abstract painting but I did notice something interesting about them. Everybody can read into it what they chose to. It’s true that some aspects of color, line, form etc. can dictate the mood and reaction to a painting. But only to a point I believe. I did actually start out with subject matter and a meaning to this painting. However I always enjoy the wide variety of reactions from different people. Why spoil the fun by explaining the meaning of the simple shapes. Let them mean whatever you like.


Tunnel 21" x 17" Acrylic on canvas board with an oil glaze.

This was the first experiment using texture. I built up a thick layer of gesso and used a pallet knife to texture the walls of the tunnel. Later this was painted first with a very thin wash like paint. The paint would pool in the low areas of the texture. Later I would highlight the high areas with a more opaque paint. I used the same technique in another painting called Charlies Horses. Both the Tunnel and Charlies Horses are what I would call experimental only. I kept the subject matter simple and only focused on a new technique. The effect is really quite interesting but you will have to take my word for it. The just doesn’t show up in digital form very well. Count on this self taught painting trick to show up in later works.


PrismaticHighly textured acrylic with oil glaze on canvas board.

Oh, I do occasionally love to try my hand at an abstract. It never fails to amaze me to hear all the different comments about what this "is supposed to be." I've heard everything from a crater to a weird sunflower. In actuality, I am not a very good abstract painter in that I really don't just play with random shapes and colors which is really what an abstract painting is. No, this painting, "Prismatic" is a realistic aerial view of a lake in Yellowstone called the Grand Prismatic. (I used a photo from a National Geographic Magazine as reference.) Grand Prismatic is a VERY hot spring fed lake. In fact it is so hot that the only living thing in it is bacteria. It's the minerals and bacteria that made the interesting shapes and colors surrounding the very deep lake. I only wish the computer did a better job of showing the texture here. This painting is almost like a relief map with it's sculpted surface.


Mirror Acrylic on canvas,

The original idea for this one was to have the grown man (in this case my husband,) touching a mirror and seeing a child (my son,) in the reflection. As artists well know sometimes the idea evolves into something else. Aside from the title there is little left of the mirror. I had a lot of trouble doing this painting and still don’t see in it what I was going for. I took several reference photos (which may appear in a photography page I’m working on,) and in the end I moved away from the mirror idea all together. I kept the barrier between the two but left it a mystery as to what that barrier is. I also tried a painting technique I don’t usually do. That is the highly textured paint almost entirely done with a pallet knife. As I am more a blend to the end artist (see the painting Ready for Romance in the fun gallery,) this was no small task. Aside from all the technical problems I had with this, I do like the content. The idea of a grown man looking at the child and seeing his own inner child and at the same time the child looks to the adult and looks for knowledge which the adult has, and the magic “touch” where they meet.


Iron Horse 17" x 22" Charcoal on rag papper.

My husband is the rail fan in the family and taught me to appreciate steam engines. If you have ever seen a steam engine up close you can understand. The steam engine seems to really be alive. It literally breaths. It huffs and puffs when it is working hard and seems to have a heart beat when it rests. Once called the Iron Horse it seems only fitting that wild horses should form in the smoke.


Spirit of the Race HorseWater color

I had to try watercolor. This was a first attempt at it. Can you see the ghost horse? Look closely at the clouds.


Charlies Horses 25" x 21" textured acrylic on canvas board.

Charlies Horses was the second experimental painting I did using a textured surface. (See the Tunnel painting also in this gallery.) My intent here was simply to play with the texture. Horses were chosen as subject matter only because I can draw them almost completely from memory and don’t have to spend much time on them. The title really has two sources. When I was working out my thumbnail sketches for the horses, the one I almost used looked just like the opening to the TV show Charlies Angels. I’m glad someone pointed that out to me. I hated that show and quickly added a fourth horse. It still has that same sore of look though. My son, who is only five, likes this colorful painting. He just happens to be named Charlie.


Sky 30" square oil on canvas.

Like many people I enjoy a walk in the woods with my dog. I may be a bit unusual in that I prefer to go after dark, and usually in somewhat undesirable whether. One evening in particular, it had drizzled all day. At night the fog joined the drizzle. It was a full moon but who would know? It wasn’t visible through the fog and clouds. Suddenly the sky started to open up a crack. The moon beamed through and the stars looked like diamonds nestled on a black velvet background. Like some Spiel berg movie the crack on the clouds opened into a round tube like opening in the clouds. High above the rain clouds were a wisp of clouds. I could swear the sky looked as if some weird vortex were about to suck the entire earth through. The very next morning I started this painting. This painting is unusual because you must view it by standing directly below it and look up. That's right, this MUST hang on the ceiling.


So What Is Real? 36" x 30" Acrylic on canvas.

This painting was accepted at the Kalamazoo jurried art show, 1997. Inspired by the artist Renee Magritte, a French surrealist who does (among other things,) paintings of a painting by the window. The reality outside the window spills onto the painting. I really like art that plays with the viewers mind. My painting is a variation of that idea. The painting is breaking up. The reality behind the painting of the painting is breaking up. The artists hand is breaking up and the canvas itself was stretched in the shape of breaking bits.


Dolphins at Atlantis 16" x 24" Oil on canvasboard.

What can I say about this one but I simply love the sea and my favorite animals happen to be dolphins.


WAVE#1 Liquid JadeOil on board.

There is a story to this one. One of my teachers wanted to buy the Coral Reef painting. That was the last and probably the best one I did while still attending Southwestern Michigan College and I don't want to part with it. He later explained that he had a dream where he was in an all white room and there was a painting of a wave coming straight at him. The colors within the wave were like a rainbow. I was intrigued with his description so much so that I wanted to try and paint such a wave. (Wouldn't it be erie if my painting turned out just as the one in his dream?) Well, my problem is that here in Michigan there aren't many large waves to study as reference. Fortunately this instructor is an avid surfer and happened to have a book of nothing but large waves which he has kindly loaned to me. As a practice piece I found a photo I liked, (especially the light coming through the water,) and tried to copy it. In the process, my own painters technique started to emerge and the finished painting looks better than the photo. (In my opinion of course.)
I do have three other waves nearly completed though I don't feel they are as good as my first effort and none really have the rainbow effect I was after. I've moved onto other projects now and who knows when I will get these others on line.
One last thing, the photo of this painting came out terrible. I am waiting for my second redo from the camera shop and I hope to get a better reproduction at some point.


Student, or experimental works I've included in my gallery works that I don't really consider successful. For a variety of reasons I may feel the piece didn't come out the way it was intended. Some were done while I was taking classes and still didn't know which end of the brush to hold, and some were done later. I like to experiment with different techniques and first time trials often go wrong however some of my early attempts at something new show up in later works much more refined and effective.
I think it's helpful ,to other artists especially, to be able to see the failures as well as the successes. Heck, even the great masters reworked paintings over and over again before they got it right.