Peach Tree Mural

"Peach Tree" and drawings

acrylic on wall

mural

Here's a mural I did in a home. It's located in their kitchen, which is decorated in a mixture of country and italian tuscany.

I worked directly with the homeowner on this one and they had a pretty good idea of what they wanted before we met so it was relatively straightforward.

I only needed to do some drawings of tree and container variations before beginning the finish.

The bottom two drawings were for the client. Showing the different fruit trees and containers. This way they can choose any given container and any given tree, mix and match, to come up with a final image. This helps me streamline the process and avoid doing endless variations of tree/container drawings.

The top drawing (showing the ghost images of the page underneath) was done for the purpose of working out specifics of leaves, branches, peaches and the bee, once it was decided to go with a peach tree.58,59,60,61

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3 Birds

"Crow in Burnscape"

oil on panel, 2010

6" x 8" ( 15.24cm x 20.32cm)

private collection

"Male Chaffinch"

oil on panel, 2009

3.5" x 5" (8.89cm x 12.7cm)

private collection

"Caspian Tern"

Acrylic on illus. board, 2004

private collection

Here's 3 very different bird paintings done at different times. In this case they were not done as part of any series.

"Caspian Tern" was a commissioned painting from 2004. The tern, and if I'm not mistaken the recipient of the painting too, is frequently seen around the wetlands in Huntington Beach California. The wetlands have been going thru habitat restoration the last few years so as they expand so will the numbers of visiting wildlife, creating great opportunities for artists and photographers.

"Male Chaffinch" The owner of this painting is known for her referrals and networking skills, so from the expression "A little bird told me... " came this image. I did choose a male chaffinch over a female for the simple reason that in most cases in nature, it's the male who has the colorful markings and colorful is what her personality is all about.

"Crow in Burnscape" was a response to having walked thru a nature preserve following a wildfire. The birds and small wildlife I saw scurried about behaving rather nervously, while the crows seemed to be surprisingly at home. Crows, which are known for their intelligence must have realized that they were the only ones who now blended into their modified charcoal landscape.25,26,27

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