Digital Watercolors- Pterodactyl Waterfall

I did this for the conference as well- or something similar. I got a critique, and so have changed the image some from the originally submitted piece. I flipped it, to keep the movement going left to right (as it is now), I enlarged the pterodactyl to push its wing tips off the sides of the pages to really make it seem BIG, and I pushed the contrast between the shadowed background and highlighted foreground (i.e. the pterodactyl itself) to really make it pop as much as I could. What was fun was that I brought in a natural media watercolor abstract that I've been working on, and found the composition in it by digitally inking on it, adding more color, darkening areas, etc. It's definitely a very specific style, but I really liked working this way, and may play more with other abstracts in the future.

Digital Watercolors- The Chickens Are Out!

I'm working on some new portfolio pieces for a conference on Saturday.  This is the piece I finished on Monday.  Done digitally, with line work in Paint Tool Sai and color work in Artrage.

Poem- Form and Function

Form and Function

One of the great joys

in tending to a tree

is that form still follows function. 

Many people hack at a tree.  They want

a certain affect, and so deliver

aesthetic wounds.

The long,

sinuous

line

of a trunk

speaks to

elegant health.

And the removal of twigs

unhealthy to a tree

add to its beauty.  To open the center of a tree,

and let it breath freely, to remove scale

and disease, is to reveal

the powerful chest of a plant

most likely older than yourself.  And much as they might tell you

if you were studying words, or books, or science, or theorems,

it is the elegance of a tree’s beauty

that leads

to the smoothest, strongest function.

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Poem- Bending the Knee

Bending the Knee

You have to learn to how to bend the knee

to become a gardener.

If you want to plant a flower

you need to open the earth.

And if you want

to remove weeds

you have to start at the ground.

Only a fool tries to weed standing up.

Even the old

get down on their knees

to tend to the needs of soil.