This painting was commissioned by BookCrossing.com to be used on a limited edition of bookplates sold on their website. Artwork for their series of labels is created by various members of BookCrossing. The BookCrossing representative asked for something similar to my Deluge painting, so I returned to Times Square for inspiration again. This was from a photo reference, used with permission by Dave Baker. I altered various parts of the scene to better match the theme of BookCrossing, turning Times Square into the "world's largest crossing zone." I have donated the original painting to BookCrossing, where it will eventually be auctioned off to raise funds for their organization.

This was an oil sketch I did as an exercise in learning to paint faster and looser. Most of my paintings I spend days, weeks, or months on. One of my artist friends suggested I try doing one-hour oil sketches as a way to give myself a new perspective now and then. I actually spent an hour and a half on this one, but the idea is the same. I've done several oil sketches like this, but this is one of the better ones, in my opinion.

This started out as an experiement using the Verdaccio style of underpainting (a monochromatic value study using a green-grey - it's meant to be especially good to when painting flesh tones on top). However, once I finished the underpainting, I liked it so much I didn't want to paint over it! So I've left it as it is. This is my husband's fist, painted from a photo I took.

This was a painting I did just for fun from a photo reference used with permission by Amy Walker (Ivyleaf, on WetCanvas!). I wanted to try and capture the way the light was shining through the petals of the sunflower, and I liked the bright blue sky behind the yellow-orange flower. I thought it was very striking photo that would make a nice painting.

This was an oil sketch I did as an exercise in learning to paint faster and looser. Most of my paintings I spend days, weeks, or months on. One of my artist friends suggested I try doing one-hour oil sketches as a way to give myself a new perspective now and then. I've done several oil sketches like this, but this was the first one I tried like this, and I was pleased with the results. It's a lot looser than I normally like to paint, but I think it's good to avoid confining myself always to one style.

I painted this for one of the group projects at the WetCanvas! web forums. The project was to design a collaborative tarot deck, in which each participant was assigned one or more cards to illustrate in any medium. My first assigned card was the Ace of Pentacles. This painting is currently in a private collection in New Hampshire.