I’ve finished my latest piece. Here’s where I was when I stopped last time: where I left off last time It took just a few more additions to finish this art journal spread of a barn owl, and one of them—the text—finally revealed to me what the spread is about. I’ve called it “Spirit of Owl.” the finished barn owl art journal spread The Text The text was the first thing I added. This was because I thought the glow from the candles might be in front of some of it. I took care wi

This, my latest art journal spread, was born of very little thought or inspiration. I decided to portray a barn owl, for little reason other than I felt like it. Barn owls have good associations for me and perhaps after the previous spread inspired by my witnessing of a hawk carrying off a rat, something lighter and more positive would be a good idea. I began by sketching the bird. And then, for reasons unknown, light showed up in the form of three candles. Where this all wou

A few weeks ago, I posted two drawings—one of a rat and the other of a hawk. The drawings were the beginning of my response to a distressing scene I’d witnessed: a hawk carrying away a struggling rat. You can read more about this backstory in my earlier post here . The experience and the drawing led to an art journal spread in which I attempted to work through a spiritual question which has haunted me for a long time—the death of animals. This turned out to be a process of sp

a quiet dawn Objectively speaking, this is not a remarkable scene, but it is very special to me. It’s the view at dawn from the door of my workshop. The building is actually an old garage for farm equipment and is about about a hundred yards behind the house. Soon after we moved here nearly four years ago, I spotted an apparently stray black cat. I managed to tame him rather quickly and named him Clyde. My four year old granddaughter called him “Clydie” and it stuck. Clydie S

The other day I saw something which froze my heart and flooded my eyes with tears. A hawk was carrying away a rat. I had such a clear view—painfully clear. The hawk had the shoulders of her prize grasped in her powerful claws. I could see how bright, smooth and white the rat’s belly fur was, and could see her little legs flailing as if desperately trying to find ground under her feet. I’ve had several pet rats and have had occasional wild ones visiting my garden. I’m sure man

I recently recorded and published my next episode of flip throughs of my art journal, and it happened that one of the four spreads I discussed was my all-time favorite. It brought back a flood of memories of the covid lockdowns. That’s not the reason it’s my favorite spread, though. It’s that the story it told was so intriguing and personal. Here’s the spread. the crocodilians from their Zoom call The crocodile from the Nile river valley, an alligator from the outskirts of th

Last week, being part way through my latest art journal spread, I looked at the main character and asked myself “who is she?” Well, now I know. She’s a fairy in a celestial garden. The finished art journal spread, "Celestial Garden" So, this post is about how I got here from where I stopped last week: As I worked on finishing up, it felt like I wasn’t doing much, but those relatively little additions and changes made a big difference. In the finished piece, although she doesn

I wanted to make an art journal spread featuring a fairy (or fairies). You’ve probably seen photos of a country road with spreading trees arching overhead from both sides. It would have the look of a lush, verdant tunnel stretching into the distance. I was pretty sure I had a magazine clipping or two depicting just that sort of scene, and knew it would be a perfect beginning for a spread with fairies. But as I was headed to the studio to search through my clippings, I got dis

All last week I was so looking forward to getting back to my most recent art journal spread. When the time came, the first order of business was to add color to the detailed sparrow pencil drawings. the birds in my art journal spread are now painted Painting the Birds I used washes of transparent acrylic—Golden Fluid Acrylics, to be specific. I really like these paints for a couple of reasons. First, I enjoy that they’re fluid yet still highly pigmented. In my painting style

Hearing a Bible verse about sparrows recently reminded me of how much I’ve enjoyed seeing the sparrows in my garden this year. In the...