Join me as I make a small watercolor. I start with a drawing of geometric shapes, then I make a watercolor loosely inspired by a landscape. I’ll share my thought process and inspiration with you along the way. I hope you’ll enjoy this meditative process.
See a year’s worth of little watercolor squares I made here.
If you want to learn more about watercolor, I offer an online watercolor course, and you can find it here.
I did something I haven’t done in a while this week. I made a little watercolor square and shot a video of it, showing the process from start to finish. If you’ve been following my work for some time, you might be familiar with my project of making little watercolors every day for a year back in 2016. Making small watercolors has always been a meditative practice for me, so doing this felt like coming home. With all the craziness happening in the world, I felt like sharing this process as a little gift I could give others. I hope it brings you some peace.
If you want to learn more about watercolor, I offer an online watercolor course, and you can find it here.
For the last few months I’ve been experimenting with making watercolor maps of my runs, walks, and bike rides. I keep track of these activities using a GPS, upload the data to Strava (a sort of social network for athletes), and then use the Strava-generated map as the reference for these drawings.
When I started making these, I was including a lot of the data, but after a while I realized that the map part was the most interesting. So I’ve focused on making these smaller – more minimal – drawings since then.
Below you can see the drawings in their current incarnation (the six drawings on the top left) and in their previous forms. The current drawings are 5×7 inches and are watercolor, graphite, colored pencil, ink, and acrylic.
I spent a few days last week camping at the Davidson River in Pisgah National Forest, riding bikes, hiking, and soaking in the river with old and new friends. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to meet there again next year at the same time.
And on the studio side of things… if you haven’t had a chance to see my work at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, there’s another week left to catch the exhibit “Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow.”
The show features drawings, collages, textiles, installation, and video projects on themes of changing ecology.
The last day of the show is Saturday July 12th. The Davis Gallery is open M-F 9am – 7pm and Saturday 9am – 4pm. Sawtooth will be closed this Friday July 4th and Saturday July 5th for the holiday.
Image Credits: Sawtooth School of Visual Art
I turned 45 last Saturday and spent the week with my family at Oak Island, NC. Each day I indulged in multiple trips to the beach to run or walk or swim or just jump over waves. I read a lot and caught some of Roland-Garros. It was pretty great!
In the studio I’ve been working on a painting commission of skiers and I think it’s done. I’m starting an intimidating weaving project next, and I’ll share when things are under way and I have images to show.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out my show at the Sawtooth School, it’s up until July 12th. You’ll find drawings, collages, textiles, installation, and video on themes of changing ecology.
Last October 2024, Brooke Musterman (of the Let’s Talk Art with Brooke podcast) and I had an interesting conversation, and now you can listen to it on her website here or on Apple podcasts here.
Among other things, we talked about whether art school is necessary or not, how to make work about challenging subjects, and my current show at the Sawtooth School in Winston-Salem, NC.
This is a glimpse of the work in my show “Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow” currently up at Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, NC.
The exhibit features video, collage, drawing, textiles, and installation works that explore our relationship to the ephemeral and ever-shifting natural world.
Spurred by climate change and ongoing geopolitical concerns, with this work I’m exploring distinctions of permanence and impermanence, as well as the delicate balance between chaos and order.
The show is up until July 2025 at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, NC.
This week my solo exhibit Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow opens in the Davis Gallery at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, NC.
The reception is Thursday April 17th 6-8PM.
The exhibition will remain on view until July 12, 2025.
Through textiles, drawing, video, and collage, Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow explores distinctions of permanence and impermanence, offering artworks that have evolved from contemplation, play, and concern.
Learn more about the show here.
The installation of my exhibit Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow continued this week at the Sawtooth School of Visual Art. We invited community volunteers to help me make boulders, large bundles of textiles that are compressed and tied together. I started making these a couple of years ago while experimenting with reclaimed fabric at Penland School of Craft, and wanted to include more and bigger ones in this show. They sit heavy on the floor in my sculpture work Boulder field.
I’m particularly pleased with this boulder-making experience because last summer I decided I wanted to make more work collaboratively and with community. The two events that the Sawtooth School held brought in people who were genuinely curious about the process, and who were happy to put in the physical effort needed to tightly bundle all of these materials. It was a real pleasure to make these as a group.
Thank you to all the volunteers who came out to help and to our community partners who generously donated the large quantities of scrap fabric needed to make these!
The opening reception is April 17th 6-8pm in the Davis Gallery at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art.
