Pastel And Graphite

My Oil Paintings

This still life was the first oil painting I ever attempted! My mother still has it at home in her dining room, and though it is imperfect I still consider it one of my favorites because at the time I was simply thrilled to just be painting!

This is a portrait that I started in 2010, but I have not yet finished! The subject is a simply darling little girl, and I had been wanting to paint her for several months when her mother approached me and commissioned the project. Unfortunately she is still unfinished, due to my move from Virginia to Utah, but hopefully she will be finished soon!

I cannot wait to finish her!

This is a rough picture of the Temple of Heaven In Beijing China, I used to live in that city as a child, and when I revisited in 2009 so many places just spoke to me and inspired me! I sometimes wish I could paint exactly what I feel and what my heart sees.

Dae Heum is a a Korean student I met in China, he was a good friend to me, and always had this expression on his face, one day I got a quick shot at him with my camera as he was reaching for a water bottle and I had to paint it. This painting is part of an on going project of a collection of the many faces I saw in China.

This is the first face I ever painted. Up till this point I had always painted still life, which though is good practice, and often a pretty picture, was not so fulfilling to me, I wanted to expand, and my father encouraged me to paint a face, I was scared to try, however, with the little confidence I had in myself I began to paint, I used on of Steve McCurry's photographs as a reference, and with out sketching a single line or graph I applied paint to canvas, and this was the outcome. (I have cropped the photo, the actual painting is not only focused on the face.)

Again, this photograph is cropped to a close-up of the face. But this is another Steve McCurry Picture, I have spent no more than 20 hours on this painting, it is still in it's first stages, but I have left it as it is, rough.

Lars is my family's faithful dog. We brought him home form a shelter when he was 5 years old, and to a family of 6 kids (with four being girls) we just adored this timid and loyal dog! He often just lies down and thinks, and he would always sleep in my room on the floor next to my bed. He has one blue eye and one brown eye. He is such a sweet heart! But I couldn't sleep one night, and just had to paint, so I looked through tons of old photos I had and found this one! With Lars lying at my feet, watching me in just this way I was able to really capture his personality.