What I’m Up To

I am a beginner at drawing and painting! I am sure that if you look at my work, you will spot many, many inaccuracies and errors.  I’m putting everything I’ve done up on my old photography website to pull it all together in one place so that I can critique my work. 

I started this adventure in the fall of 2020, so I’ve been working at it for almost two years. My entire artistic life and career have been in photography (portraiture, fine art, and most recently, flower photography.)  I have always loved looking at drawings and paintings but thought that I couldn’t do it well (discouraging elementary school art teacher and a good friend who was quite talented,) so I went towards photography in high school and stayed there.  But with the boredom of covid, I decided to try something new. 

My first venture into drawing and painting was in the Botanical Drawing Program (in person with masks) at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens with Carol Sutherland. This program consists of nine 5-week classes over one year and we worked in graphite, charcoal, and colored pencil.  We studied and drew bromeliads, orchids, trees, fruits, “the fall harvest,” and various plants and flowers from the garden.  I went through the complete course twice and improved a lot under Carol’s direction. 

In January of 2021, I started a zoom class, Shadows and Light, with John Horne from Spruill Art Center, which I continue to go to (now in person.)  In this class I have primarily drawn large scale portraits (20x24) with graphite and charcoal from photographs I have taken or found on the internet.  With John Horne, I have also taken several Inks classes and am now taking a Portrait class with live models.

 I work almost daily in my sketchbook and have tried ink and wash, gouache, and watercolor painting. 

I have taken many online tutorials, mainly with The Virtual Instructor.

I am working hard at these new art forms and am improving!  I don’t have any goals, except to get better.  I truly enjoy the daily effort and the meditative flow I feel while drawing.  And sometimes, I also like the results! 

 Bio

I had been professionally involved in photography since 1973.  Employment has  included newspaper photojournalism, Atlanta History Center in-house photographer, black and white children’s portraiture, and, for eleven years, teaching digital photography and video to middle schoolers and doing in-house photography at a K-12 school in Atlanta.  I had always explored fine art photography, exhibiting whenever possible. Since 2020, I have put photography aside and am exploring drawing and painting.