Detours

take us away from the predictable, the everyday.  Although detours can take longer to get from point A to B, and open us up to failure, they can also offer us stimulation and a trip into the unknown.  I am first and foremost a painter.  But there is something in my soul that craves change, especially come summer.  These three balloon images were created by reduction printing on a linoleum block.  It requires backwards thinking and an acceptance of happy accidents.  This secondary medium offers less control, I think, that direct painting.  Working with unfamiliar paper, tools and mediums offers a different "feel" that my hands and my heart appreciate!  Color mixing is key.  So is the acceptance of imperfect shapes cut by blades that are unforgiving.  I am no Joan Colbert, a friend and colleague whose prints both defy, to me, what can be done with these crude tools, and challenge the intellect. But that does not take away my joy, my pleasure in the creating of these images.  I find that these challenges, these detours, inform the decisions I make in my drawings and paintings, as well as offer up an addition to my always-evolving sense of visual aesthetic.


These prints are on exhibition at The Open Door Coffee Company located at 164 N. Main Street in Hudson, Ohio.  Drop in to see them and to sample Deborah's new line of scrumptious bite-size cupcakes!

Yellow Rising...combining realistic painting with patterning

Yellow Rising   watercolor   27.5 x 15

is the painting that resulted from our watercolor class challenge of architectural detail.  I do love houses...especially old ones.  In this case, I chose a view of a home just up the street, featuring only the part of that home that I enjoyed the most...the windows.  Painting objects in their entirety along with their surrounds (i.e. gardens, walkways, backgrounds) is not nearly as appealing to me.  For me, more forms in the work diminish the power of each and every form.  This approach reflects my current aesthetic of simplicity.  On a whim, I chose to embellish the work with with a detail from a salvaged piece that hangs in our home with, I believe, a carving that would have appeared in a home of about the same age.  I began with a sketch that guided the movement around the page and followed it closely during the painting process.  I am satisfied....

....for the moment.

Fragile Patterns...

Fragile Patterns   Charcoal/Mixed   19 x 12.5

tickle my fancy.  This portrait of Elizabeth was done from life at a session a week or so ago.  Elizabeth is a long and lithe and terrific model....very beautiful.  She was wearing a necklace comprised of hundreds of beads, a red vest and a black sequined bra.  I used vine charcoal to render the portrait.  At home, I thought about the pattern of the beads and chose a Moroccan design for the background.  Red watercolor washes overall.  The beads were intensified by dipping a pencil eraser into printing ink and pressing them onto the surface.  Patterns and jewelry are a woman's armor, weaponry if you will... peaceful decorations that celebrate beauty and love.

Pattern recognition and musical patterning are functions of the right brain.  

Fragile patterns celebrates this notion.