More paintings

Jesse was a last minute replacement for Mark to be St. Paul. He was tapping away at the Smith-Corona as I was painting him. The blank painting will be my third attempt to paint Abby as the Theotokos -- if it works tommorow, she will be part of a diptych with Aaron's Gabriel doing the Annunciation. Don't know why she's so hard to paint. Maybe it's because it's just too hard not to make her look like an anime cartoon.

epic lightsabre battle

This epic battle was requested by thomasw. Yes, they can do accurate sound effects. Even the baby says bjjj, bjjj as she waves around her lightsabre.

Works in Progress

I've been drawing people kind enough to pose for me for about five hours with breaks in between. I have a show scheduled at the Vancouver Public Library first two weeks of august. Any artist can apply for this -- it's not even juried, but it's good exposure and the downtown library is a spectacular venue for anything. The paintings below are works in progress with backgrounds to be decided. I will probably choose something altar piece like but only time will tell. I've been known to paint over paintings.
This painting has a history. Underneath is a painting of an abstract blue wave structure. Underneath that is Rosalind Franklin (DNA scientist) holding a cat .... here's a picture of this lost painting:
Now that I look at it, it wasn't too bad, but I wasn't happy with her face. With just a black&white fuzzy photo reference, there wasn't much I could do to liven it up. I decided to abandon the concept altogether and paint the angel Gabriel instead. Initially, I thought about Fr. Christopher with his curly hair and beard. Then I found out he had a shave & haircut! So much for a traditional looking Gabriel! I then had to go modern. Fortunately, Abby generously volunteered Aaron to pose kneeling for five hours...


Gregory was model number two. He was infinitely patient with me as I changed his left hand several times. I told people to come as they were. Gregory came in a grey t-shirt and beige chinos. Gregory is the Archangel Michael holding a sword (in this case, Peter's old Akido Japanese wooden practice sword). Gabe contrasted his carrot red hair with a kermit the frog green sweatshirt. Gabe is so naturally vivid that any pose would have worked, but I eventually chose this meditative pose. Gabe is John the Baptist.

A Special House

I built this Vancouver Special with my son Joshua. "Oh, Mommy", he sighed, "It's beautiful!!!". Husband Peter said, "How could you?".

Hello World!

Hello World! That's the first thing I do to test any new program -- I get it to print hello world on a screen. It was always the first assignment in my old comp sci classes. I read about a team of bio-engineers who got bacteria to form pictures like a bacterial computer and the first image these bacteria formed were the words -- you guessed it-- Hello World!