New Painting and some News

I know I have been away for awhile. I have been making lots of changes here at the studio and expanding what I do. For a long time I have wanted to combine my love for illustration and story telling with my wildlife art. The trouble has been that my illustration work has always been very different from my fine art work. Even though the same techniques and thought processes go into both types of work I have never been quite comfortable in bringing the two together in one place, a bad idea I picked up somewhere in art school. Something about high and low art. But through some soul searching and encouraging from some wonderful people ( even if they did not know that's what they were doing at the time) I have come to realize what a dumb and uninformed idea that really is.

Art should always be what it is to us as it is to children, a free expression of thoughts and ideas. Kids draw things they love or things they think about, good or bad. They are expressing ideas and emotions. It doesn't matter if they are drawing pokemon, dragons, people, flowers or something that they make up. Whether the drawing of them and their Mom and Dad looks realistic or like three squiggly potatos holding hands it doesn't really matter to them,as long as the people they made it for like it and get the message it carries.

So what does all this mean for my studio? Well it means that I have spent the last few months illustrating and learning to make a fun line of rubber stamps for the studio that we are making entirely in house. A website will be up and running in a week or so that will feature both my illustration work ( rubber stamps, character illustration, illustrated stories, and a blog for rubber stamping ) and my fine art work ( watercolors, oil paintings and drawings ) some sections will be added over time, but new stuff will be added frequently to all sections.

The new painting I am starting has been a bit of a challenge. Not technically, but the concept for it has been evolving for several weeks ( that means I have painted over it and started over several times ). So I went out and did some sketching and took some photos. Today the concept finally gelled into a simple design that I hope will convey a story for myself and others. Here is the sketch for it.

"Cross Roads. A Change in Direction."