Figs and Toile
5" x 7"
oil, acrylic, pencil on illustration board

The perfect ingredients went into this painting that I made this morning: a strong cup of Colombian coffee with a dash of chocolate powder, Sheila Chandra's ABoneCroneDrone on the stereo, and fresh figs from the farmers market. Oh, and a wallpaper sample donated to our student ASID sale for reference. (Don't worry Nancy, I didn't get paint on it, it's still in its wrapper!) All these elements combined make for a wonderful way to shut out the world for a few hours and practice with the oils.

Leather Chair
oil on panel
9" x 12"

We stayed at our friends' family house in Carmel before summer and I was taken by the way the light reflected off this chair's leather surface. I painted a small study in oil early on, but just today put the finishing touches on the painting. Interiors are challenging in so many ways and I find them intriguing in terms of rendering them in a variety media. In my classes, I teach my students to use markers, color pencils and watercolor for their interiors and furniture pieces, but I save the oils for myself!

View From My Window
18" x 36"
oil on canvas

This is a painting I started during the 50/50 project over the summer, but just now finished. It's the view from our living room window, around 6:30AM. I've got a few more unfinished works in the studio so I'm going to plow through them as quickly as I can. I have a solo show scheduled for April 2011 and I want to focus on that as soon as all the little loose ends are wrapped up in my studio.

Oh, did I mention all our girls have moved out and we're redecorating two rooms? There's a lot going on in the Holland house- big changes!

I'm getting caught up on some projects this week, so I began the tedious process of adding the horizontal spacers between the bulkheads of New Ark. Each piece is cut to size on my screaming miter saw. The pay off to this long process is that the shape of the hull begins to reveal itself. I'm going to clad the hull in .063 polycarbonate film that will be painted to resemble steel.

New Ark concept drawing

Sunday morning, a time to reflect and realize just how many unfinished projects I have going. This week will be devoted to finishing at least a few of them. It's getting downright embarrassing...