I've been creating art for as long as I can remember, but my well stocked childhood cabinet of chunky crayons and colored paper has now been replaced by rich pastels, bright acrylics, and stretched canvas. What hasn't changed is my attraction to vibrant colors and expressive compositions. These traits flow through all of my work, from pet portraits to landscapes, from architecture to whimsy.

My focus recently has been on pet portraiture. Capturing a pet's essence is one of my favorite things to do. Using the highest quality acrylic paints on gallery wrapped canvas, I bring out the inner child that lives inside each of our pets.

Please come back and check the site often, as I add new work all the time. If there is something that you'd like and don't see, please contact me with your requirements.

Thanks for stopping by and please come back soon!

Pastel Paintings

Most of my pastel pieces have no fixative applied to them. I feel that fixative dulls and darkens the color of pastels, therefore, I hardly ever use it. The pastel painting is fragile and can be easily smudged if anything comes into contact with the painted surface. I send the piece wrapped in glassine, which you should leave on until you have the opportunity to have the piece matted and framed under glass.

When framing a pastel painting under glass, it is important that the painting does not come into direct contact with the glass. Therefore, a mat should always be used to separate the pastel from the glass. When matting, it is always advisable to go with a double mat to keep the pastel as far away from the surface of the glass as possible. You might also consider using spacers between the matting and the pastel. This allows any pastel dust that comes off of the piece, to fall behind the mat, and not collect on the bottom edge.

There are basically two types of glass to choose from, ordinary and non-reflective. I prefer ordinary glass as the non-reflective tends to cast a matte sheen over the picture. Plexiglas should never be used for a pastel, as the Plexiglas tends to hold a static charge which will attract any loose pastel dust to the surface of the Plexiglas.

Acrylic Paintings

The support for all of my acrylic paintings is stretched gallery wrapped canvas. With gallery wrap,  the edges of the canvas are wrapped around the sides and secured on the back of the piece.  This allows me to paint the sides of the canvas so that it can be hung without framing.