Seasonal Blooms

Here is an image of a colorful amaryllis and some paperwhite blossoms to brighten a cold Monday. Having flowers and blooming plants around for a burst of color during this snowy season has such an energizing effect on me. I hope this illustration I created for an architecture firm's holiday card will bring some cheer to you as well.

Seasons Greetings

I love how these two illustrations turned out and feel they reflect a peaceful and harmonious mood for the holiday season. I created them for a client as non-religious holiday cards and I designed them to be square. The full images shown above fold in the middle, the right side is the front of the card and the left is the back.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Elegant Reindeer on the Town

I created this illustration for a holiday open house invitation I designed recently for a luxury gift and jewelry store. The idea was to get people to come into the city for the event despite the snowy weather and nearby construction. The illustration's colors tied in with the store's mahogany, red and silver holiday decoration theme. What appears gray in the image was actually printed in metalic silver. It was a lovely event.

Three Cheers & A Trio

I have a wonderful client with a retail store that I have worked with for many years and I every year I create a postcard invitation for their holiday open house sale event. They loved this illustration so much they have wanted to use it for three years in a row, so I changed the colors each year to make it look fresh. The above illustrations show how it's evolved from two colors to full color.

A few nights ago we went with friends to see the Jeff Hamilton Jazz Trio. All three musicians are very talented and played some of the best jazz we've heard in a long time. I was inspired by their performance and just had to create this quick image of them.

On my Desk

This is a photo of a gouache painting I've been working on. I think the colors are inspired by the cool autumn weather we've been having here.
Also, I recently signed with Palmers Gallery in Salt Lake City and they have already installed a wall of several of my paintings. I've been diligently painting away.

Illustrating New York City

This is my gouache illustration for New York City, Real & Imagined, a collaborative book project organized by Julia Breckenreid as part of the Illustration Conference — ICON 5/NYC 08. The hand-bound book showcases original paintings and drawings of each participating illustrator's individual perspective of New York City. It will exhibit in September at Maryland Institute College of Art.

My DaDa Box

I allowed my inner Dada to come out recently in the creation of this box. I was one of the artists asked to participate in a Dada-inspired art auction recently as a fundraiser for the Salt Lake Art Center. Each artist was given a shadow box and could create whatever they wanted within a Dada theme. To create my concept "Mixed Message" I painted puzzle pieces randomly and put them back together, cut four books and reassembled them to make one, and had an antique mixer "mix" strips of money, book and journal pages, and other collaged pieces. For the sides and top I used collage and painting to create different faces communicating mixed messages.

In the Garden

I love to spend time in my garden and always find inspiration there. I have coffee every morning in the back yard and my two cats watch while I water the flower pots and read or paint in my sketchbook. We grow mostly flowers but also have a small herb garden and a couple of tomato plants. We don't have space to grow our own vegetables but we do enjoy the abundance of fresh vegetables and fruits at our local farmers market.

Jazz Festival

I love jazz music and especially hearing good performers live outdoors at a summer concert. I have had the pleasure of creating the art for the Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival since 2003. It's been a rewarding challenge to come up with a new image to represent the festival each year. Here is this year's poster and a couple of the t-shirts.

New Textural Digital Images

I usually create images digitally with solid color, but recently have been adding texture and a painterly quality to my digital illustration. I love how it looks. These are "Summer" and "Winter" of four seasonal book illustrations I have done (you can see the other two seasons on my website). This series is my newest using this technique.

Allegory

I am intrigued by the idea of representing nature as human in spirit and my recent personal paintings are inspired by allegory and myth.