closed for the season

Rockport, Massachusetts.

The Clam Box

Ipswich, Massachusetts. The best darn fried clams anywhere!

Clarence and the chickens

Six months ago, my neighbor started a hobby of raising chickens. My cat Clarence is less than thrilled with them. In my opinion, chicken -watching is great entertainment!

After a longer than expected hiatus, I'm determined to get back to daily art posts. Unfortunately, life sometimes gets in the way of art. Not enough art makes me nervous. Making art is like a nice brain massage.

Wimberley lavender farm

We're not in Kansas anymore.

Wimberley lavender farm

The lavender are in full bloom right now. The farm is west of town, not far from the town of Blanco, Texas.

sleeping upside-down

Clarence has taken to sleeping the day away on my desk. It's kind of interesting to watch and listen to him while I'm working. Oh, the joys of working from home.

Tee Shirt design

One more day to vote for this design on threadless.com.

fawns galore!

All of the deer in this area have their fawns in late March, early May. They are hidden away in the tall grasses and underbrush of the cedar and live oak trees. Now is when they gain the confidence and skill to follow their mothers. They are adorably playful in a Bambi sort of way. I sure hope she grows up healthy. Many of the deer are hit by cars around here. This fawn's mother was hit, just before giving birth. Her back leg is badly dislocated, but she still limps around and takes care of her baby.

Behind this fawn is a giant rosemary bush and blooming garlic aliums.  There are very few plants the deer won't eat, and these are them.

waiting for tacos

Other than the building, this scene never existed. While waiting for tacos, I sketched the building. The order was faster than usual, so I got the tacos and left. Later, I added the drunken cowboys.

century plant bloom

A century plant is a very large agave with sharp, painful needles. They bloom once, then die, leaving rooted starter plants. The stalks are very impressive. They grow quickly to about 20 feet tall. During this time, they look like the Jolly Green Giant's asparagus stalks. I was thrilled to learn recently that the stalks and blooms were used on movie sets as plants on alien planets in the cheesy old movies. Century plants are originally from Mexico, but they are all over the Texas Hill Country. This is my front yard.

new, improved design

"The Good Life" is a revised T-shirt design through threadless.com. If you like this, please vote on threadless.com. Thank you!

vote here

downtown Drippin' Springs

A quick location sketch, inked later. It's too hot out there already.

the winds of change

An old barn and a new house along Winters Mill Parkway in Wimberley. Before the road was built, I hiked back here and got lost. It's hard to imagine, now that the landscape has been tamed.

A world of coffee

My submitted T-shirt design for threadless.com's coffee theme challenge. Vote now!

cheeseburger in a frame

rubber fish art

I found these rubber fish at the thrift store and had to incorporate them into art. This is a cabinet door painted with acrylic. The fish and glass bubbles are embedded in a thick polyurethane. I suppose this qualifies as both art and craft.

close-up

The rubber fish are embedded in thick ENVIROTEX-Lite polyurethane, which give the background a realistic look of water. This art is really sturdy. I think it would look great on a wall near a swimming pool.

framed flower

I found this oval frame recently. It's fun for creating optical illusion art. There will be more of these.

Ink on bristol board.

springtime at the power plant

Acrylic on masonite. There are two layers here, the flowers above the background. This isn't quite finished, and may never be finished. It's been a great experiment and learning exercise.

The objective of this piece is to show the electrifying energy of springtime flowers.

deer breakfast

She likes her apples chopped, with the skin on.

land shark

I took this picture of my deer friend through the screen door. Any day now, she'll be knocking at the door.

free-range chickens

Six weeks ago, after returning from a trip to Florida, my next door neighbor volunteered to pick me up at Austin Bergstrom Airport. Since my plane was delayed for a couple of hours, she went to a nearby garden center and bought some Rhode Island Red baby chicks (a wild moment of impulse shopping). I had a box full of them at my feet for the drive home.

Who knew chickens are so entertaining? They are about 2 months old now, with most of their adult feathers. I'm so glad I was able to talk my neighbor into building the coop on the opposite side of her house, away from mine. Cluck luck.

my deer friend

This is the first time this deer has ever made herself this comfortable. She stands in front of my porch, looking at me, waiting for carrots. It's kinda creepy sometimes. I swear she's going to knock on the door one of these days.

This deer is 3 years old and has been coming around here since she was a fawn. Last year she had her first fawn. A week or so ago, she had her second season fawn. I've been calling her Mommy Deerest. I haven't seen the baby yet, but it should be soon. That's when it's time to pay close attention to where I walk. Deer are well-camouflaged, so you don't always see them in the shadows of trees. When there are fawns around, the mothers are very protective and dangerous. They stand on their back legs and hit hard with their front hooves. I should whistle while I walk.

Kinetic yard art. This deer is just like one of the family pets. She is always is my yard. Yesterday I made tortillas, for the both of us.

Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge

What do Bostonians call this bridge? The formal name sure is a mouthful of words.

the canyon

Part rock formation, part modern skyscraper, a cityscape that melds into the natural landscape.

I tried something different; watercolor and ballpoint pen. It was very liberating!

underneath Boston

Northbound through the Thomas P. O'Neill Tunnel. It's like driving through a science fiction novel. Wooosh!

arm tattoo

I was commissioned to create a full arm tattoo. I've never designed tattoos, much less an entire arm. It's amazing how intricate the designs can become. This is a rough drawing with approximate proportions.

left - back view

right - side view

windows

I don't know if it was some kind of a Big Brother complex I was having, but there seems to be an extraordinary abundance of windows in Medford Massachusetts.

fishbowl

For more than 30 years I have boated, fished, swam, and explored the Gulf of Mexico. This oil spill is tragic.

Some of the fishes of the Gulf of Mexico include Bonita, Spanish mackerel, blacktip shark, speckled trout, sand trout, kingfish, redfish, gaftop catfish, vermillion snapper, grouper, croaker, ladyfish, skipjack, rockfish, sand trout, wahoo, barracuda, cobia ling, sheepshead, sand shark, pilot fish, dorado dolphin, pompano, yellow fin tuna, tiger shark, flying fish, mullet, snook, nurse shark, red snapper, pinfish, sunfish, blowfish, ribbonfish, flounder, sail fish, jackfish, black drum, white drum, tarpon, marlin, manatee, sea lion, porpoise, sea turtle.

after the rain

Brushpen with Photoshop colors.

window seat view

Traveling from Boston to Austin. I'm the person who insists on a window seat and then has to make a few trips to the restroom. And I come back to my seat with a fresh cup of coffee. And then I have to wake up the seat mates to get out again. Shouldn't there be some kind of ejector system built into the middle and window seats so we don't disturb the aisle seat person?

The flight was long enough to sketch and ink this drawing while flying. Luckily, I pencil'd in the colors for later reference. The landscape changed from rolling farmland of Pennsylvania, to wooded mountains of West Virginia and Tennessee.

sunrise thunderstorm

When the storm rolled in at sunrise, the sky glowed like a fresh bruise. Yellow and orange, deep green and blue. It ominously foreshadowed what came next...lightning and booming thunder all around. The bolts were searing white with electric blue edges. I sat on the porch and sketched this after the power went out. This happens often during storms. Who needs electronic technology when there's Nature's light show?

the neighbors

We have a huge deer population in the Hill Country. For several years I've been feeding and befriending a family. This mother and her yearling come by every day for handouts of carrots, apples, and corn tortillas. She comes up to my porch and peers in the window until I bring food. They are highly entertaining and often downright funny. This deer is pregnant, so it will be interesting to see how she reacts to her ever-present yearling when the fawns arrive. I don't get close enough to touch them, nor do I give them names. But I do love observing them from a few feet away.

radio head

While painting at my out-behind-the-barn studio, I notice that my radio looks like a face when its cassette mouth is open. I guess it's good to be easily amused.

blooming aloe vera and zebra succulent

I sketched this a couple weeks ago. Now, the bloom stalks are about 2 feet tall. I have quite a collection of succulents and cacti, many of them are blooming now.

New Bedford, Massachusetts

Nine years ago I read the Moby Dick novel with rie Anderson performed her multi-media "Songs and Stories of Moby Dick", I attended not once, but twice. First was the kick-off of the tour in Dallas. Months later, a friend and I flew to New York for the final night's performance of the tour. I was hooked on reading about the great whaling era in New England.

So on a recent visit to New Bedford, I could really feel the history of the town. I've dreamt about it too. Ahoy there, Matey!

If you're curious, have a look at Laurie Anderson's website. She has been an ongoing creative inspiration to me for many years.

earth oil

I drew this several months ago but decided I didn't like it. I still don't like it but it looks like a situation we're faced with in the Gulf of Mexico. And possibly beyond.

Spring flowers

It's Spring Time!!! Brushpen and Photoshop.

abandoned treehouse

This tree is no more than 200 yards from my house. I walk past it and sometimes stop to look at it. I've never climbed it but would definitely have been up there when I was a kid. Back then, I loved making forts and hidden 'secret' places in the woods of Virginia. I revered nature in the early years, as I always will.

Ogunquit, Maine

Perkins Cove lobster boats. When I was in the 5th and 6th grades, I lived in Virginia. Our American and Virginia history teacher would set aside lecturing of Fridays to let us draw pictures from the history book. For some reason, I feel like I'm back in that class while drawing these New England sketches.

Lobster!

These lobsters were so delicious and fresh that they needed no butter. Twin lobster lunch for $19.99 at DiMillo's, the floating restaurant and marina.

Marblehead, Massachusetts

The Barnacle seafood restaurant. I didn't eat here, but did explore the rocks at low tide. There are some wonderful creatures in the pools around the rocks.

Concord, Massachusetts

The Old Manse house is next to the battle field of the first Revolutionary War encounter in Concord, Massachusetts. This was also a meeting place for Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau.

the cancelled flight

Boston to Austin. What did we do before cell phones?

Medford, Massachusetts

Along the banks of the Mystic River. This scene instantly reminded me of the canals in Bruges, Belgium.

30,000 feet above Pennsylvania

Sketched on the plane heading to Boston. I sketched and inked this on the plane, later Photoshop'd the colors. A window seat, sketchbook and itunes are the perfect way to pass the time on an airplane.

flight 67091 to Boston

I'm heading to Boston, be back next week!