Painting & Sculpting 2023

A Very Busy Studio Year...
SPRING/SUMMER
The Sanctum Porcelain Painting Series
   Usually I consider myself a sculptor, but for the last 8 years I have been learning to paint.
   I began painting regularly on small smooth pieces of wood. It was just for fun, but a few sold and I felt encouraged to keep practicing.
  When I started using porcelain clay I wanted to paint my porcelain works but with permanent pigment. China painting was the solution. It's not that I hadn't made sculpture before with surface treatments on them, it's just that I realized I didn't really like acrylics, oils or glazing.
   China painting is an odd choice considering that it is complex: mixing, layering, firing and troubleshooting color layers and tinting issues.... Perfect if you like challenges.
   I took regular classic china painting courses and even a doll painting class (unlike classic china painting, they use a water based china paint). Classes were useful, but it was my constant practice  at home that accelerated the learning curve. Classic porcelain painting taught some medium and technique, but I felt it was very restrictive to where I wanted to go. And certainly china painting on  ones own sculpture pieces wasn't covered in class!
My painting approach is loose, unstructured and often just plain intuitive. I have an absurd amount of colors (over 86) and crafted my own oil blends to fit my personal style. 

SUMMER/FALL: Botanical Imaginarium 
More porcelain Flowers
Last years Native Orchid series, Wild Orchids, was a wild success. The first 'batch' is almost sold out and I have commissions in the same flower style to complete in the months to come. Heavy in painting, they are still mostly sculpture. The porcelain sculpted flowers are complex and time consuming. This year I continue the natives but add what I call 'wedding flowers'....anemones, bleeding hearts and butterfly ranunculus.

FALL: Corvidea Series
In the Fall I will join other artists in the Olympia area to create ravens and crows. Working in clay bodies that are heavy in manganese- a mineral that helps make the clay very black- the ravens will be full size and accompanied with flowers. As a side series that I hope to sneak into Childhood's End as well are wild birds like wrens, towhees and owls....

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warming up for the corvidea show in fall.....forest wren and hummingbird in bisque